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Event EVT-000268

SOEKOR drills the Karoo for oil - and finds uranium instead

1965–1969 · national · Prince Albert

About twenty deep wells across an area larger than Germany, put down by the state oil company looking for petroleum. They did not find economic oil. In 1967 a crew lost drilling fluid at 2,400 m on Skietfontein near Aberdeen, and the same year the cores came up with anomalous URANIUM - which started the next thing. A drill bit from this era, or the one after it, still lies on Rondabel (LEAD-0051).

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