A deep-drilling exploration project in the southwest end of theoil/gas saturated San Joaquin Valley about 45 miles northwest ofBakersfield is moving into the production testing phase with itssponsors, Tri-Valley Oil and Gas, liking what they have seen inpreliminary analyses of the 19,100-foot-deep Project Ekho#1 testwell.

“Logging and interpretation of the Ekho #1 has been completedand, as a result of all core and log data, (we will) proceed withcompletion and production testing,” said F. Lynn Blystone,Tri-Valley CEO last week, noting “it looks awfully good.”

The test production work will get underway by early June, and itis expected to take 60 days, Blystone said. The drilling wascompleted in record time, taking 80 days to hit the 19,085-footdepth.

“Information is still coming in, but this is by far the fastestwell in California ever drilled under 19,000 feet,” Blystone said.”We brought it in under $5 million, but we don’t know how muchunder yet. (the drilling was budgeted at $5.3 million ; $9 millionwas for everything, including land acquisition). By contrast withanother deep drilling project in the area (four for $100 million),we have broken some economic ground.”

Responding to critics in Los Angeles-based media who suggestedthe projections for the Project Ekho deep-drilling may be too high,Blystone said “We don’t think these are high at all. This is aworld-class affair we have going here.

Project Ekho’s nine Canadian Venture Exchange (CDNX) resourcecompanies and their initial interests are: Aster Ventures Corp.x(ASV.V) 20%; Curion Ventures Corp. (CUV.V) 20%; Lucre Ventures Ltd.(LVD.V) 12%; Berkshire International Mining Ltd. (BKR.V) 10%; CVLResources (CVL.V) 9.64%; Consolidated Bradbury InternationalEquities (CBN.V) 5%; Curlew Lake Resources (CWQ.V) 5%; Pan OceanExplorations (POE.V) 5%; and Prairie Pacific Energy Corp. (PRP.V)5%.

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