For the Record (1)

Hughes Tool Co., the world's leading producer of bits for oil and gas drilling, says 1980 has been record year for drilling but all the activity has not produced any notable increase in the nation's oil reserves. There are two reasons for this, Hughes Vice President I. C. Kerridge Jr. said. First, most of the activity this year has been "infill" drilling in established fields, rather than wildcat drilling to find new reserves, Hughes said that is natural that when oil prices are rising, the companies concentrate their efforts on increasing their output from existing fields rather than gambling on new fields. Secondly, the year has seen a substantial drop in the production from some of the more mature fields.