DATE: Saturday, September 20, 1997          TAG: 9709200262

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY ESTES THOMPSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: RALEIGH                           LENGTH:   61 lines

CHEVRON GLAD TO HAVE N.C. SCRUTINY OF OIL EXPLORATION

Chevron USA said Friday it welcomes scrutiny from North Carolina regulators of its proposal to drill an exploratory oil and gas well off the coast.

That's a good thing, because the governor promised it.

``We can't foreclose them from applying, but boy, we're going to look at them as hard as anything we've ever looked at,'' Gov. Jim Hunt said during a telephone news conference from Stockholm, Sweden.

Hunt is leading a three-week trade trip abroad.

``Our goal and our absolute commitment is to protect North Carolina's coast,'' Hunt said. ``They have a right to request to do something, but we will thoroughly review Chevron's proposals.''

Chevron exploration manager Andy Hardiman in New Orleans said the company wants to drill a single well at the edge of the continental shelf, 40 miles northeast of Hatteras. The plan is to drill the well in the spring of 2000, a project that would last 90 to 120 days.

Chances that the well would find huge reserves of oil or gas are 2 percent or less, Hardiman said. Chevron paid the federal government about $40 million for lease rights off North Carolina.

``We're talking about a single exploration well to determine whether there is any oil or gas potential off the coast of North Carolina,'' he said.

``There just haven't been any oil and gas operations in or offshore of North Carolina for so long that people just are not familiar with oil or gas issues. We welcome the scrutiny, quite frankly. We want people to be comfortable with Chevron and the way we conduct our activities and the way we do business.''

Hardiman said the only problem with the exploratory well off North Carolina would be surface currents. At the bottom, currents are light and the rock is expected to present no pressure or heat problems, he said.

At some wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico, ``we do encounter high temperatures, as high as 400 degrees, and pressures over 10,000 pounds per square inch,'' he said. ``That is what we would consider a more challenging well.''

The company produces 100 million barrels a year in the gulf, he said.

If a profitable oil or gas field was located and the state insisted, the entire operation could bypass North Carolina, Hardiman said. That means a pipeline to bring the oil or gas ashore wouldn't have to come to the state's shoreline and that shore support facilities wouldn't have to be in North Carolina.

``We know people are worried about the risk,'' Hardiman said. ``There's been thousands of exploration wells drilled off the coast of the United States, and an exploration well has never put oil on the surface of the water.''

Mobil asked the state for permission in 1990 to drill a well in the same area and was denied because it didn't present enough information.

An exploratory well would be drilled by equipment brought from the Gulf of Mexico, either a semi-submersible platform or a drilling ship, Hardiman said. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

Exploratory Drilling

For complete copy, see microfilm KEYWORDS: OFF SHORE DRILLING CHEVRON USA

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