The nation's capital, Harare, has not imported adequate supplies of chemicals to treat water, resulting in citizens resorting to shallow wells and rivers for water, according to health advocates.

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In April 2008, I wrote about McMoRan and the vision it had for finding significant oil and gas deposits by going deeper in areas that provided significant discoveries decades ago in the Gulf area, both onshore and offshore, in shallow wells drilled years ago.

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In contrast, with these ultradeep shallow water wells, Chevron is eyeing prospects that might be nearly as big as those deepwater finds.

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Shallow-water wells, he said, usually produce gas, not oil, lessening the chance of a spill.

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Located in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, these wells like Davy Jones and Blackbeard have found massive amounts of natural gas.

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The Texas Railroad Commission, using chemical fingerprinting, maintains that the EPA is wrong and that the gas seeped into the well from a shallow formation a few hundred feet beneath the surface, much closer to the water wells.

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Stone Energy (SGY), which is headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana, is drilling several deep and ultradeep wells in Vermilion and Cameron parishes in the belief that gas-bearing reservoirs below the shallow Gulf bleed onshore, and that onshore drilling offers a way to tap an abundant hydrocarbon resource without incurring the considerable expenses of underwater operations.

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But, along the way, even including disappointing wells that held no meaningful hydrocarbons, there has been a complete redefinition of the geology of the Shallow Water Ultra Deep play.

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