Wolverine Gas & Oil Corp. is producing approximately 1,500 barrels of crude per day from two wells just outside of Sigurd. The company, though, believes its discovery 130 miles south of Salt Lake City eventually will point the way to a billion barrels or more of oil in the area.

"I honestly expect that we'll find another 10 fields out there and that this is going to be a billion-barrel province," said Doug Strickland, exploration manager for the Grand Rapids-based Wolverine. "The potential is enormous."

Yet not everyone is ready to buy into that notion.

"They have made a good find, but the question is whether it will be as big as they think," said Tom Chidsey, petroleum section chief for the Utah Geological Survey. "And it is going to take awhile to figure out the geology of the area."

Wolverine's first well started producing in May 2004 from a field that the company estimates contains 100 million to 200 million barrels of oil. The company now is in the process of sinking several more wells in the area to further its understanding of the field.

The company also is examining another 25 potential targets within a roughly 5,000 square mile area that combined could contain as much as 1 billion barrels of crude. "We'll be sinking another exploratory well within 25 miles [of Wolverine's initial wildcat well] a little later this year," Strickland said.

Wolverine's discovery is more than 100 miles from any of Utah's other major oil fields and at least 45 miles from the nearest operating well.

Its properties, though, are within the well known Utah/Wyoming "Overthrust Belt" - an extremely complex geological region where millions of years of faulting and uplifting has made finding oil, even in areas where most geologists would expect it to occur, an extremely uncertain venture.

Despite Wolverine's discovery, there still will be a lot of risk involved in future exploration in central Utah, said John Baza, assistant director of the oil and gas program at the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining. "Two wells do not a major discovery make."

But Larry Nation of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists noted that Wolverine has "spent real money" exploring the area. "They are a legitimate company by anyone's standards and they have a good track record. And they wouldn't have spent any money in the area if they didn't think they had something."

Chidsey noted that oil companies have been exploring central Utah for over 50 years with no success until now.

Wolverine acquired lease rights and seismic data for the area from Chevron in 1999.

steve@sltrib.com