Desert Wildcatters Dream of Riches After Years of Dry Holes (1)

Jim Franklin says his “MRI in the sky” tells him there’s a pool of oil bigger than an OPEC country’s in the central Nevada desert where no one has made a significant crude discovery in almost four decades.

That is crazy talk to some geologists, but also what’s behind the decade-long rush to lease millions of acres of federal land in the state. More federal land has been nominated, and then leased, for oil and gas exploration in Nevada during that period than in any state except Wyoming—even though little oil has been found.

The speculation reflects that it is ...