454 
MINERALS YEARBOOK, 1967 
 
000 gallons of butane mix and 11,000 gallons of gasoline per day. 
 Total capacity of the State's natural gas processing and cycling plants
declined to 303.2 million cubic feet per day, owing mainly to shutting down
the California Company Cranfield field plant in Adams County. 
 According to the Oil and Gas Journal, solution caverns in a Forrest County
salt dome contained the following fuels as of October 1967: Propane, 3,312,000
barrels; butane, 600,000 barrels; LP gases, 2,000,000 barrels. 
 
 Petroleum. — Jasper, Adams, Jones, 
Franklin, Lamar, Pike, and Smith 
Counties supplied 64 percent of the 
State's crude oil production. 
 An average of 2.9 barrels of salt water was produced with each barrel of
crude oil, compared with 2.6 barrels in 1966, reflecting the advancing stages
of the various waterflood projects in the State. 
 Drilling of 335 exploratory wells, with an average depth of 7,786 feet,
resulted in the discovery of 22 oilfields, a discovery ratio of 1 out of
15. 
 An additional and most significant discovery was the Pelahatchie-Norphlet
pool in Rankin County. The discovery well flowed at the rate of 1,440 barrels
of 510 API gravity oil per day through a 9/64inch choke, with a tubing pressure
of 6,200 pounds per square inch and a gasoil ratio of 876 cubic feet per
barrel. The Jurassic Norphlet Sand, productive from 17,152 to 17,160 feet,
has never before yielded oil in Arkansas, Louisiana, or Mississippi. The
structure on which the discovery well was drilled reportedly extends 8 to
10 miles north-south and 2 to 3 miles east-west. Development on a spacing
of one well per 160 acres is contemplated. The Pelahatchie field was discovered
in December 1963 and has been producing through 11 wells from five different
Lower Cretaceous formations. 
 The search to expand Smackover Lime production continued. Twenty exploratory
wells were drilled to this objective, resulting in the discovery of the Nancy
field in Clarke County. In 1967, emphasis was 
on developing the Jurassic reserves discovered in previous years. Accordingly,
45 wells were drilled, resulting in 32 producers (a ratio of 7 out of 10),
12 of which were multiple completions. The producing Jurassic wells, with
an average initial producing capacity of 483 barrels per well per day, along
with other less significant development wells, accounted for the 2-million-barrel
increase in petroleum production. 
 Reserves of crude oil in Mississippi dropped 17.4 million barrels, according
to the American Petroleum Institute, and constituted 1.1 percent of the national
reserves, compared with 1.2 percent in 1966. Ratio of reserves to yearly
production decreased from 6.8: 1 in 1966 to 6.2:1 in 1967. 
 In 1967, the National Stripper Well Association classified 234 wells as
having been stripper wells in 1966. The wells represented 9.2 percent of
the producing oil wells and 1.5 percent of the State's 1966 reserves. 
 Four of the State's five plants refined 23 percent of the annual crude oil
production; their capacity was increased to 37,500 barrels per stream day.
The fifth plant, the Standard Oil Co. of Kentucky refinery at Pascagoula,
processed Louisiana crude oil exclusively; its capacity was enlarged to 145,000
barrels per stream day. 
 Secondary recovery operations accounted for about 9 million barrels, or
16.0 percent of the State's crude oil production. 
 
 Petrochemicals.—Chevron Chemical Co., a subsidiary of Standard Oil
Co. of California, completed an ammonia plant at the refinery complex of
Standard Oil Co. of Kentucky at Pascagoula. The plant, with a capacity of
1,500 tons per day, reportedly is the largest in the world. Gas from Louisiana
offshore oilfields was used for feedstock. At this complex, construction
was completed on a plant owned by Chervon Chemical Co. for making paraxylene
and toluene. The plant has a capacity of 250 million pounds of paraxylene
per year, which is isomeri.zed from orthoxylene and metaxylene.