Prompted by discoveries of oil fields in Florida and Mississippi late in 1943 and in Alabama and Mississippi in the early months of 1944, the southeastern states have enjoyed their most active period of geophysical and drilling exploration during 1944.

Alabama had its first commercial oil production as a result of discovery of the Gilbertown field by H. L. Hunt's A. R. Jackson No. 1, Sec. 2, T. 10 N., R. 4 W., Choctaw County, on February 16, 1944. Nine producers and 5 dry holes were drilled in the field during the year. Accumulative production for Gilbertown was 56,064 barrels through December, 1944.

In addition to the Gilbertown development, there were 21 wildcat wells drilled in Alabama: 4 in the Paleozoic province of northwest Alabama and 17 in the southern and southwestern part of the state. During 1943, 9 wildcats were drilled and abandoned.

Six wells were abandoned in Florida during 1944, one less than were drilled during the preceding year.

In the Sunniland field, Collier County, the Humble Oil and Refining Company's Gulf Coast Realty Company No. 1 pumped 11,832 barrels of 19° A.P.I. gravity oil in 1944. This is Florida's only producing well.

No production was established by 6 wells completed in Georgia in 1944.

The year's development in Mississippi was high-lighted by (1) discovery of 5 new fields in the southern part of the state; (2) proof of an appreciable oil-rim around the Cranfield structure in Adams County; (3) discovery of Eutaw production in the Eucutta field, Wayne County; and (4) minor extension of producing area in the Pickens field, Madison and Yazoo counties.

Four shallow piercement salt domes were discovered in 1944, and they, as well as several previously discovered domes, have been explored for sulphur. Only the Richton dome, Perry County, yielded non-commercial sulphur showings.

The Sun Oil Company's Hammett No. 1-A, Bruinsburg dome, Claiborne County, Mississippi, was completed, November 22, 1944, as a small gas well to mark first production on an interior piercement salt dome in Mississippi. Showings of gas in the Freeport Sulphur Company tests had encouraged later exploration.

Of the 1944 new discoveries, the Heidelberg field, Jasper County, has seen most rapid development due to diverse lease ownership and moderate producing depths. Production from the 57 wells completed in 1944 is from Eutaw and upper Tuscaloosa, on a graben fault system overlying a deep-seated salt dome.

The 4 other discoveries have had too little development for reasonable accuracy in predicting their significance. Three widely spaced wells have been completed in the Gwinville field, Jefferson Davis County. Only the discovery well is on production in the Mallalieu field, Lincoln County, in the Baxterville field, Lamar County, and in the Bruinsburg field, Claiborne County.

In 1944 there were 72 wildcats drilled (5 productive, 67 dry), 51 sulphur tests, and 129 field wells (113 productive, 16 dry). The figures for 1943 were: 59 wildcats (4 productive, 55 dry), 12 sulphur tests, and 36 field wells (28 productive, 8 dry).

The increasing success of wildcatting in Mississippi has resulted from more satisfactory interpretation of detailed geophysical surveys.