The Gulf Coastal districts of Texas and Louisiana furnished twenty-one new productive areas during the year 1936. This constitutes a somewhat poorer record than the year 1935, both as to number and character of new fields. None of the Texas discoveries can yet be said to be of major proportions, although initial development on several gives promise of new reserves of considerable magnitude.

Most of the discoveries lie in the deep coastal zone, but two new fields along the Jackson trend and three in the intermediate zone, tend to reinstate these inactive updip areas as profitable fields for further exploration.

Flank development on old domes has been an important activity during the year. The discovery of commercially productive horizons at depths greater than 10,000 feet tends to the belief that there are vast coastal potentialities at depths below those to which present-day exploration has been carried.

The outlook for the Gulf Coast is encouraging. There are indications that the supply of first-class prospects is nearing exhaustion, but untested prospects of a lower rating have been isolated in large numbers and it is believed that these will furnish new reserves comparable to or greater than those already developed.