Abstract Seldom do circumstances present an opportunity to report a complete sequence of management and technological events involving geology, discovery, evaluation, development planning and presentation for sale of products from a major natural gas resource. The Ozona Gas area, Crockett County, Tex., may well represent a classic example ofgeological study and successful interpretation following an offset failure;air drilling, limited entry fracturing, and modern completion techniques resulting in a significant reduction in per well costs and increased initial production potentials;comprehensive engineering study during and following the use of extensive well testing and fluid sample analyses, special core analysis and radioactive tracing techniques;evaluation of reserves based on total effective net productive formation throughout a 70,000-acre area; andrecommendations for developing dry gas and by-product volumes available for transmission and processing during a 20-year period. All technical and economic data were analyzed and summarized for presentation and use in determining optimum development programs through electronic data processing and computing equipment. Introduction The Ozona area is located in Crockett County, in West Texas, about 130 miles southeast of Midland and immediately south and southwest of the town of Ozona (Fig. 1). The first significant well in this area was drilled during late 1939. Subsequent drilling of 14 additional wells failed to discover any sizeable reserves. These wells were all drilled using mud as the drilling fluid, with the exception of one air-drilled hole. All operators overlooked the principal shallow pay zone, the Canyon sand at approximately 6,500 ft, in an effort to establish the deeper Strawn or Ellenburger production. These early wells took up to six months to drill and log with an average drilling time of approximately four months/well. These expensive wells helped Crockett County to become known as the graveyard of the West Texas oil industry. A group, consisting mainly of Delta Drilling Co., Odessa and Tyler, Tex., Johnson and Lindley, Houston, Tex., and Pauley Petroleum Inc., Los Angeles, Calif., entered the area during mid-1961 with the following drilling and development sequence. The initial attempt to establish production in the area appeared to bear out the futility of drilling this area after drilling and suspending the first test during 1961. This well, the Friend No. l, was spudded July 13, 1961 and suspended on Aug. 5, 1961 after finding the Ellenburger too low for commercial production. JPT P. 719ˆ