Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 11, 1994                   TAG: 9407110123
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOE TENNIS BRISTOL HERALD-COURIER
DATELINE: JONESVILLE (AP)                                LENGTH: Medium

THEY'RE SLOWING TO A DRIP IN VA.'S WESTERN OIL FIELDS

But don't get too excited: It's not like Texas or anything. You won't find oil barons talking cattle and crude at Dot's Diner in Ewing or at the Ben Hur Cafe.

Just outside Jonesville, however, you will find oil wells. Several of them. One is sucking green Pennsylvania Crude out of a well 2,000 feet below a grassy field where buffalo roam.

Look across the hills and you'll find more wells dotting Virginia's westernmost county, Lee, like those pumping towers in Texas.

Oil first came gushing out of Lee County in 1948 at the B.C. Fugate Well No. 1. It produced about 90 barrels of oil on its first day of production but eventually settled down to about eight barrels a day.

In 1949, the front page of the first edition of The Bristol Virginia-Tennessean heralded a Lee County oil strike in Rose Hill, an unincorporated town about 15 miles from the Kentucky-Tennessee state line at Cumberland Gap.

"The big oil gusher that blew in at Rose Hill last weekend is still flowing rapidly," wrote Virgil Q. Wacks. "Official reports from drill foreman Chester Louden rate the output still at 100 barrels an hour, more than a week after it `came in.' "

Farmer Danny Moore worked on 20 wells - not counting some dry holes - since he got started in Lee County's oil business in 1953.

"There were a few weeks that everybody got excited," said Moore, now 58.

For a couple of decades, Lee County - famous for its caves, coal and cattle - was home to wildcatters looking for raw versions of Pennzoil. Wells popped up all over cow pastures. And so did oil companies.

Virginia's oil production reached its peak in 1983 with 65,400 barrels.

In recent years, the rush for oil in Lee and Wise counties, the only sections of the state where crude oil is drilled, has been at a snail's pace.

No one's drilling new oil wells. And no one's exploring new fields.

Who does operate wells is simply in the business of keeping them going - and, like the men and women who wear the 10-gallon hats in the Lone Star State, praying for better times.

"It's not like Texas here," says Dennis Allen, who manages five wells for Ben Hur Oil. "But there is plenty of oil in Lee County."

Last year's production - 12,120 barrels - was down from 1992's 12,881.

The price of oil also is not what it used to be. Time was, it sold for $35 to $38 a barrel. Now try half that.

State regulations, too, like Virginia's Gas and Oil Act of 1990, are making new operations more complicated - and costly.

Now, with more regulations and large amounts of money required up front, "I believe it's over with for us," Moore said, referring to independent oil companies.

One well costs upward of $150,000, Allen estimated. That kind of investment, with today's oil prices, makes oil drilling here a big risk, Allen and Moore agree.