The course of exploration offshore from the States of California, Washington, and Oregon can not be reduced fully to statistics. Three ingredients of the offshore effort are money, energy, and intelligence. The first two ingredients can be described in dollar expenditures (219 million dollars for leases alone), in miles of seismic line shot, or number of holes drilled. Contour maps of the dollar expenditures in the various areas of interest indicate how the first ingredient (money) was used, but contour anomalies on these maps suggest that the third ingredient (intelligence) either cannot be analyzed fully or has not been used in proper proportions. Vast areas of the offshore province remain unleased and unexplored, but past experience suggests that expansion into the new areas must be accompanied by expanded use of exploration intelligence if profits are to be realized.

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