Story 'Bout a Man Named Jose

I didn't know that Belize was an oil exporter.

Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz spent millions of dollars chasing black gold in this Massachusetts-size nation located southeast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. So did Texaco, Chevron and others. Studies hinted at petroleum deposits lurking beneath the jungle floor. But drilling yielded 50 dry holes in as many years.

All that investment can't out-do a little luck it seems.

This tiny country struck oil in much the same way TV's Jed Clampett did in the Ozarks. A few years ago, a Mennonite farmer dug a shallow well in this bucolic hamlet and up bubbled crude.

"It was just like 'The Beverly Hillbillies,'" said government petroleum inspector Andre Cho.

Personally I always thought the Clampetts were from West Virginia, but since the author is writing for the LA Times, I can assure you it's all the same to her.