The Eagle Has Landed

American companies seeking drilling territory in the energy-rich "Overthrust Belt" of the U.S. Rocky Mountains compete fiercely for oil- and gas-exploration leases on parcels of land no larger than 8,000 acres. The Denver-based Eagle Exploration Co. has bigger ambitions than that. It has won the drilling rights for the entire territory of Liechtenstein, the tiny principality that nestles in the Alps between Switzerland and Austria.

Raymond N. Joeckel, 55, Eagle's president, believes that since the terrain in mountainous Liechtenstein greatly resembles the sandy, uplifted formations of the Western Overthrust Belt in the Rockies, there may be oil and gas in those hills...

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