Rango Energy Inc. announced drilling has reached a depth of 8,556 feet on the planned 13,000 ft. first well at the Kettleman Middle Dome (KMD) project. Drilling is currently turning through the Temblor Sands that lay directly underneath the Monterey Shale.

The drilling has recently passed through a 1,750 foot thick section of the Monterey Shale and will pass through the Temblor Sands, the Vaqueros sandstone, and the Kreyenhagen Shale before reaching the McAdams formation at approximately 12,000 feet. The McAdams sandstone has been a prolific producer in the adjacent Coalinga and Kettleman North Dome, with over 300 wells producing at an average of over 2.7 MMBOE (million barrels equivalent) per well. Within the North Dome both the Temblor Sands and the Vaqueros sandstones were also prolific oil and gas formations.

In 1928 the first production from the Temblor within the Kettleman North Dome generated Initial Production (IP) rates of 3,670 barrels per day of oil and 80 million cubic feet of gas. The discovery well for the Vaqueros sandstone at the North Dome occurred ten years later in 1938 and had IP rates of 560 barrels per day and 880 thousand cubic feet of gas.