SOEKOR's Karoo exploration drilling, 1960s-70s, and the uranium prospecting that followed
reference · geraadpleeg 2026-08-01
- Type
- reference
- Repository
- Council for Geoscience (Karoo Deep Drilling Project); SAJS, 'Deflating the shale gas potential of South Africa's Main Karoo basin'; Karoo Space
- Consulted
- 2026-08-01
Die sitasie soos dit gegee is
WHO WAS DRILLING IN THE KAROO, and when. SOEKOR - the Southern Oil Exploration Corporation, a South African parastatal - put down about TWENTY DEEP WELLS in the mid to late 1960s across an area larger than Germany, looking for oil. Boreholes carry designations like KL1/65, WE1/66, SW1/67, SP1/69. They did not find economic oil. In 1967 a SOEKOR crew lost drilling fluid at about 2,400 m on Skietfontein near Aberdeen. | THE SECOND WAVE: SOEKOR's boreholes intersected anomalous URANIUM in 1967, and prospecting for sandstone-hosted uranium in the Main Karoo Basin ran from 1969 to 1985 - ESSO trial-mined into the late 1970s and Beaufort West was spoken of as a future mining town. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl collapsed the price and it stopped. | TERTIARY, and gathered specifically to date a drill bit lying on Rondabel. See LEAD-0051.
Woordeliks gehou. Hierdie projek weerspreek gepubliseerde genealogieë en stel 'n familie se eie mondelinge oorlewering reg, so elke bewering moet nagegaan kan word deur iemand wat nie in die vertrek was nie.