FIRMS TO DRILL WILDCATS IN VIRGINIA, MARYLAND

March 25, 1991
G. Alan Petzet Exploration Editor The Taylorsville basin southeast of Washington, D.C., will host more drilling this year. Texaco USA and Eastern Virginia Gas Co. plan to drill two 10,500 ft wildcats along the Potomac River, one in Maryland and one in Virginia. The remote wildcats are an outgrowth of an aggressive leasing and core hole drilling program that Texaco carried out in partnership with Exxon Co., U.S.A. in 1985 and 1986 near the eastern margin of the basin, Petroleum Information
G. Alan Petzet
Exploration Editor

The Taylorsville basin southeast of Washington, D.C., will host more drilling this year.

Texaco USA and Eastern Virginia Gas Co. plan to drill two 10,500 ft wildcats along the Potomac River, one in Maryland and one in Virginia.

The remote wildcats are an outgrowth of an aggressive leasing and core hole drilling program that Texaco carried out in partnership with Exxon Co., U.S.A. in 1985 and 1986 near the eastern margin of the basin, Petroleum Information reported.

The Taylorsville basin is a buried Triassic basin. Part of the basin is exposed in Hanover and Caroline counties, Va., southwest of where the new wildcats will be drilled.

Several old wells penetrated Triassic in the Maryland area where it is overlain by 1,500 ft and more of Cretaceous, Tertiary, and Quaternary sediments.

TEXACO WILDCATS

Texaco plans to take extraordinary environmental protection precautions at the wildcats, as it did at an earlier well drilled in mid-1989 (OGJ, May 29, 1989, p. 36).

The Virginia location will be in King George County 23 miles east of Fredericksburg. Well site will be 31/2 miles northwest of Texaco's 1 W.B. Wilkins et ux. That well, in Washington district, Dahlgren quadrangle, northwestern Westmoreland County, was plugged at about 10,000 ft in August 1989.

The Maryland location will be about one half mile south of the town of Faulkner in Charles County (OGJ, Dec. 31, 1990, Newsletter).

Texaco is seeking governmental approvals to drill the wells.

Eastern Virginia Gas is a joint venture between Eastern Exploration Inc., Saddle River, N.J., and Emerald Rift Co., an affiliate of Hillman Co.

Copyright 1991 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.