High oil prices rekindle oil production in Mo.

DEERFIELD, Mo. – Pumpjacks, the oil rigs that resemble those thirsty bird toys, are going up in Missouri for the first time in two decades, the latest region to revive a long-faded industry as crude nears $130 a barrel.

The sky-high price of oil has turned extraction methods recently considered cost-prohibitive into cash cows.


Bright blue pumpjacks stand over a 10-acre site near the Missouri-Kansas border where MegaWest Energy Corp., a Canadian company, is attempting to draw heavy oil