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Caleb Middleton of Deep Rock Energy Corporation (left) and a specialist from Oklahoma lay pipe underground to make a new oil well. The well goes down about 3,800 feet and east about 2,400 feet. They are drilling sideways to capture oil underneath Forbes State Park in Illinois. KINMUNDY, Ill. — Count Ben Webster as either the luckiest oilman in Southern Illinois or the shrewdest. Maybe both. Webster got into the oil business as a hobby a decade ago when oil was $14 a barrel. In 2002, his company, Deep Rock Energy, made the state's biggest oil strike in a half-century when he drilled the Warren No. 1 well from the outskirts of Stephen A. Forbes State Park. This spring, he celebrated another big find, tapping a reservoir estimated to hold 1.5 million barrels of oil as the price of crude climbed to a record $140 a barrel. "We've... [read full story]
