Oil on NZ’s lands was widely rumored as early as 1912, but was not produced until 1986, and then as a follow up to a random oil show found in a uranium research core hole drilled for the Department of Energy back in 1982.

The resulting “Nose Rock Oil Pool” produced about 60,000 barrels of light, sweet crude before its depletion. Geologically similar small oil pools are possible in the same general vicinity, but exploration costs are difficult to justify for such small oil pools.

In July 2001 Mr. Worsley sold SkyMall to Mr. Murdocks’ NewsCorp group that owned TV Guide and agreed to stay and run SkyMall for several years.  Mr. Worsley was successful in raising in excess of $100 million in the first 13 years of SkyMall’s existence.

Elsewhere, all of NZ’s other potential petroleum prospects must be classified as rank new basin wildcat. In Cibola County, New Mexico previous wildcat wells contained prolific porosity or permeability.