Reply #73: Rumble in the Jungle Over Oil [View All]

[54anickel]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-belizeoil5apr05,0,4846266.story?coll=la-home-headlines

SPANISH LOOKOUT, Belize — This tiny country struck oil in much the same way Jed Clampett stumbled on a gusher in the Ozarks.

A few years ago, a Mennonite farmer dug a shallow well in this bucolic hamlet and up bubbled crude.

"It was just like the Beverly Hillbillies," said government petroleum inspector Andre Cho, who advertised the incident to woo private investors.

The cast of characters linked to the find is as colorful as anything on television. They include speculators motivated by an Irish self-help guru, Mennonites who have hired an ex-con to extract a better deal for petroleum on their land and a seismic engineer with an unshakable belief that his impoverished nation was brimming with oil.

Belize joined the ranks of the world's oil exporters in January, when its first shipload of crude hit the market. Production is a mere 3,000 barrels a day, but some Belizeans are dreaming of a payday to rival that of the Clampetts'.

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Across Belize, rumors abound of oilmen in Stetsons rushing to cash in. "When you see Texans coming down here, you know that something is up," ...

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