Is there oil under Abbeville?

Is there oil under the city of Abbeville? That is the million-dollar question some are hoping to answer in the next couple of years.
Dunn Exploration, out of Houston, is hoping there is oil under Abbeville. Dunn Exploration is spending more than $200,000 to find out if there is oil under Abbeville.
The oil company has had a good track record finding oil near Abbeville. For the last two years, it has drilled and successfully found oil off of Coulee Kinney Road and right next to the Abbeville Country Club.
In Vermilion Parish, alone, Dunn Exploration has 11 producing wells, many around the Abbeville Country Club.
This week, the new search for oil began in Abbeville. A public meeting at the Abbeville library was held. Residents from Abbeville attended the public meeting to listen to Dunn Exploration representatives talk about its quest to find oil in Abbeville.
This week, Dunn Exploration is mailing letters to 7,000 homes in Abbeville explaining to them what is about to take place over the next four
to six months in Abbeville.
The letters explain that Dunn Exploration is asking permission from Abbeville residents to take 3-D seismograph images near there homes or yards.
“The areas that we want to shoot, have never been shot,” said Jerry D. Miekamp, vice president of land for Dunn Exploration. “We want to tie in data from the north (Vermilion) area to here (Abbeville).”
Also in the letter, Dunn Exploration is asking each resident to sign a release to let the seismograph company, CGG, place a seismograph sensor in their front yard for two weeks. Not every resident will have the sensor in their yard but every resident who signs the two-year agreement will get a check for $25 from Dunn Exploration. If you own two lots, then your total will be $50.
Niekamp said their goal is to get releases from all 7,000 residents, that way they will be able to take 100 percent of the landscape under Abbeville.
If only 50 percent sign the release, then their 3-D seismograph pictures will not be able to tell the entire picture of what is under Abbeville.
By August, four seismograph trucks will be in Abbeville taking pictures of what is under Abbeville. Every quarter mile on the streets of Abbeville, the four trucks, known as vibrator trucks, will stop for less than a minute in one spot and take pictures. The trucks will not go down every road in Abbeville.
George Henslee, the operations supervisor of CGG, explained to the residents of Abbeville that when the vibrator trucks begin doing seismograph work, the residents will feel little or no vibration in their home or on the road. The only thing they will hear is the loud engines of the trucks when they begin taking pictures.
The vibration of the trucks isn’t going to harm any water lines, assured Henslee.
It will take the four trucks about 20 days to gather all of the information they need in Abbeville. Niekamp said it guaranteed the city of Abbeville that if a seismograph tears up an Abbeville street, the oil company will repair it.
Once the seismograph trucks leave, the data has to be processed. That is expected to begin in October.
Niekamp said the process to search for oil in Abbeville, from start to finish, will take at least two years.
If oil is detected, do not look for an oil rig to be drilled in the middle of Abbeville. The oil rig be placed on land outside the city limits.
The letters are scheduled to be mailed out this week. If you live in Abbeville and did not get your letter, you can call the office of Angelle and Donohue (264-1151) and inform them.

(Story written by Chris Rosa, managing editor)