Tri-Valley Corp.’s “Project Ekho” exploration program in KernCounty, CA, reached its final depth of 19,100 feet Wednesday.Project backers now begin a 30- to 60-day period of self-imposedsilence to review drilling logs and records before continuing todevelop significant new supplies of oil and gas at thesub-15,000-foot levels in the extensively drilled central SanJoaquin Valley.

“[Project Ekho] has dramatically changed the economics of deepexploration,” said Lynn Blystone, Tri-Valley CEO, avoiding makingany specific projections on the volumes of what has been found. “Wehave come along under budget and ahead of schedule on this well fora fraction of the cost of what others nearby have spent for theirdeep-drilled wells.”

With backing from a number of Western Canadian independentproducers, Tri-Valley is betting there are billions of barrels ofoil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas that can beeconomically extracted from the greater depths. Production fromsuch depths historically has proved disappointing although most ofthat history relates to the early 1970s when the technology forexploration drilling was relatively primitive, compared to what’savailable today.

Blystone said Tri-Valley has two more test wells planned underProject Ekho. In a separate project, it is preparing to begin testdrilling by early July for another gas-only well in the “nearbyvicinity. Called “Sunrise Gas Project,” it has the potential for500 Bcf of gas and its $2 million test drilling is fully funded,Blystone said.

Tri-Valley’s drilling is in a vast rangeland area 40 milesnorthwest of Bakersfield, CA, in the general area where deepdrilling proved unsuccessful in the early 1970s and was nonexistentuntil a well blowout in late 1998 at a competing, Canadian-backedproject (Bellevue) demonstrated substantial gas supplies at thesub-15,000-foot levels by its longevity and flow rates.

According to Blystone, the Bellevue project has now drilled fourwells, costing collectively in excess of $100 million, while saidEkho’s first well has cost less than $5 million.

“[Ekho] is a big, big project, and it is going to go on for along, long time,” Blystone said. “We have fifty or sixty locationswe want to drill.”

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