According to Allen E. Isaacson, research analyst with the University of Utah Bureau of Economic and Business Research, 19.9 percent of the jobs and 34.8 percent of wages in the Uinta Basin of northeastern Utah are directly due to oil and gas exploration and production. When the multiplier effect is considered, such as cars sold to oil-rig workers, the figures jump to 49.5 percent of jobs and 60.1 percent of payrolls.

Total employment in the Basin is 19,852 jobs, with 9,835 directly or indirectly supported by petroleum. All wages combined in the region amount to about $745.7 million yearly; wages paid by oil and gas drillers and service companies, etc., amount to nearly $259.2 million; income from direct and indirect jobs derived from petroleum is $448.2 million.

Work tied to the petroleum economy is "just huge out there," Isaacson said.

"The Vernal High School is teaching night classes just to get people to graduate right now." A 17-year-old can graduate and jump into a $50,000 yearly job, he said.

"They're doing a lot of drilling right now. ... Most of the employment is actually not with the operating companies, you know, it's drilling the wells" or providing petroleum field services.

The Halliburton company, one of several service providers that are big in the Uinta Basin, offers support from hard-rock bits to lubricants, from cements to thermal sensors and sealant.

Once a drilling company gets a well up and running, Isaacson noted, "they need people from 30 other companies."

In 1999, 150 oil and gas wells were drilled in Uintah and Duchesne counties. In 2006, the number had jumped to about 900.

Of 240 wells drilled in Duchesne County that year, he added, "234 of them came in." Five were plugged and abandoned, and another was a service well used to inject water into the ground. "Of 660 wells in Uintah County, 624 came in."

Natural gas figures show a similar rise to those of oil. Baza said that in 2004, Utah production totaled 293 billion cubic feet; 2005, 313 billion; in 2006 the total was 356 billion cubic feet; and in the first six months of 2007, 271 billion cubic feet were pumped for the year — a rate which, if kept up the rest of the year, would bring the total to 542 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

Coal-bed methane, which is a form of natural gas, once was considered only a hazardous contaminant in coal mines because it increased the chance of an explosion. It was pushed out of mines by giant fans and released into the air, Isaacson said. But then operators began pumping coal-bed methane from a natural gas field. It became a commercial resource.

Meanwhile, production of coal-bed methane has "really increased dramatically in Carbon and Emery counties in the last 15 years," he said.