On a bright sunny day a year ago, they were drilling for "water"in Vernon County, just a mile from the Kansas border.

"Megawest took a gamble with $4 million here but it was a calculated risk," Megawest Production Engineer Paul Krawchuk said.

There's P-19, and P-23 and 24, and P-18.

"I think we're seeing fewer skeptics than a year ago when we started drilling in Vernon County," Krawchuk said.

Megawest is tapping oil with 40 pumps.

"We knew it would take a little time we just had to be patient," Krawchuk said.

They pump away 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"If it were easy to get it out of the ground it would have been out of the ground a long time ago," Krawchuk said.

Missouri oil isn't easy to drill for like Texas oil.

"It's very thick. It doesn't want to flow on it's own so we have to inject steam to melt the oil and push it to the production wells," Krawchuk said.

That water comes in, gets real hot in a furnace, turns into steam, and is shot through pipes 215 feet down where the thick oil is. Eventually, the pumps bring it up, it follows a pipe, and goes into a tank where the water and oil are separated.

"We've got it, it's just a matter of getting after it," Krawchuk said.

Megawest estimates there are 1.8 billion barrels of oil under Vernon County. Megawest has the oil rights to 33,000 acres in Vernon County. It can turn a profit as long as oil stays at more than $50 per barrel. Thursday's price was $49 per barrel.