WILD  CAT  WELL  FOR  NEWBERRY 

Newberry Springs, August 10, 1959:  Newberry Valley, already a successful farming community which has an abundant supply of irrigation water at shallow depth and is in line for tremendous industrial development the next few years, is now face to face with the possibility that a major oil field will be developed at the north-east corner of Newberry Valley near MANIX.  After getting satisfactory information regarding the geology of the Manix area the Sierra Oil and Gas Co., has announced that a deep well (5,000 feet) to test the Manix area for oil and gas would be spudded in sometime in October. 

The Sierra Oil and Gas Co., has leased some 1000 acres at Manix, where back in 1925, Mr. Wilhelm, an experienced oil man, put down two holes to a depth of 3000 feet with a cable rig and was blown out of the hole twice.  His rig could not hold down the gas pressure, and trapped one set of tool which are still down the hole. 

According to Ken Wilhelm at Manix, his father had a production of about 16 barrels of 52 gravity oil per day at 1600 feet.  The Wilhelm water well at Manix produces a black oil in the water tank several times a year, and the water tastes like Long Beach water.  In 1947, there occurred what is called the Manix Earthquake.  It was actually an immense gas blow out.  It shook the entire valley threw out thousands of tons of blue clay for a mile in length on the Manix Fault.  This is to be seen there today.  Five Cal-Tech seismologists came out to witness this blow out.  The Sierra Oil and Gas Co., a corporation, has very carefully checked the Manix Area with their own Radiographic Counter, which they claim has been very successful in determining oil and gas formations.  They also had favorable reposts from Geologists Ralph Arnold and W. D. Rankin. 

K.M. Fletcher and Ted Easton are heading this drilling program and have made arrangements with Haney and Williams to drill the well with the Western Well Logging Co., to log the well.  They expect to spud the well in the next 60 days, and are preparing to drill to a depth of some 5000 feet.