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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAn Indianapolis company searching for oil across the state hopes an Indiana oil field that once was the largest in the United States can be lucrative again.
CountryMark is taking its search to Cass County in hopes that new technology will be able to find oil in north-central Indiana, the Pharos-Tribune reported. The county is near the edge of the Trenton Oil Field, which once spread beneath a huge portion of east-central Indiana.
Rick Sumner of CountryMark said the field was discovered in the 1800s and produced several hundred million barrels of oil before being plugged in the 1920s. Oil companies have been targeting the field for more exploration in recent years.
Workers will use seismic sensors to collect data to create a kind of underground map. The map will show whether oil is present.
Work is expected to begin in about a month.
Countrymark operates a refinery in Mount Vernon and has other oil wells in Indiana, including one in eastern Vigo County near Terre Haute on property owned by the Hulman family, which owns the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It acquired 600 wells in the Illinois basin in 2010.
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