Strike triggers oil rush in C. Utah

More oil companies are drilling in central Utah, a mountainous region that long frustrated exploration until a wildcat strike by Wolverine Gas & Oil Corp. of Grand Rapids, Mich.

Ansbro Petroleum Co. of Denver and Cleary Petroleum Corp. of Oklahoma City are joining the rush in a new oil frontier with huge potential, said Bill Armstrong, president of Armstrong Oil & Gas Inc., another Denver company making plans to sink its own wells.

"Now that Wolverine found oil, it opens a whole new set of real estate to chase," Armstrong said.

Wolverine is pumping oil as fast as it can just outside of Sigurd, Sevier County. It was expecting to exceed 100,000 barrels of oil a month by now, a play many are betting won't be the last — or biggest — strike over a region about 65 miles long and 20 miles wide.

Wolverine's president and chief executive, Sidney J. Jansma Jr., said in an interview last month that his company struck oil in late 2003 and managed to keep it under wraps until last spring while snapping up leasing rights to about 600,000 acres of private and government land.

That gave Wolverine many of the choice parcels in central Utah, forcing others to the margins. Ansbro and Cleary are drilling in the same geologic formation but 40 or more miles north of Wolverine's first field. Government records show they obtained permits last May as news of Wolverine's find started intensifying the bidding at government auctions.

Armstrong Oil & Gas says it plans to start drilling within six months.

Other newcomers were more guarded about their operations.

"We hope we will be successful, but that is unknown at the moment," said Margot Timbel, exploration manager for Ansbro Petroleum.

Cleary Petroleum said it was drilling on national forest land secured earlier. "When we heard about Wolverine's discovery, we dusted off this prospect," Rick Frederick, the company's vice president of operations, said Monday.

Cleary refuses to disclose whether the drilling, which started in June, has struck oil yet. The company owns leasing rights to about 20,000 acres of federal, state and private land in Utah. It cleared a platform large enough for multiple wells just east of Nephi.

In an industry notorious for guarding secrets, Wolverine is something of an exception, a family company that got its start drilling for gas decades ago in Michigan.