OIL & GAS: The Four-Cornered Can

OIL & GAS

Barely three years ago the Southwest's Four Corners area was a 15,000-sq.-mi. wasteland inhabited by Indians, mostly Navajo, whose sheep battled the jackrabbits for meager forage. Last week the mesa-dotted region, where the boundaries of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado meet, was the hottest petroleum area in the U.S. Each day El Paso Natural Gas Co. piped more than 600 million cu. ft. of natural gas to the Los Angeles market from 3,000 wells; other companies piped huge amounts to the Pacific Northwest, Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Los Alamos....