According to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, there are no records of oil or gas extraction in state history. In fact, nobody has even bothered looking since 2014. But that could change – as Pilot Exploration, a Texas-based firm that specializes in ‘exploratory wells’ has filed for permits to drill a pair of wells in southwest Georgia’s Quitman County. The proposed wells, dubbed “Georgia On My Mind Wells #1 and #2,” would drill down more than a mile and a half into the state’s crust to search for oil or gas deposits. Finding anything is far from certain, and even if there is “black gold” in Georgia it would remain to be seen if it was economically feasible to drill for, and then of course there would be another round of permitting and likely pushback from conservation groups. But for Georgia’s second-least populated county at just 2,254 residents, the possibility of a revelation that it lies over oil or gas deposits could be a massive gamechanger.
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