Is there ‘black gold’ in Georgia? A Texas oil and gas firm wants to find out.

Georgia is known for peaches, pecans and more recently, making electric vehicles and the batteries that power them.

What it’s not known for is oil and gas production. In fact, there are no records of oil or gas extraction ever in the state, according to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.

A Texas-based firm wants to see if it can change that.

The company, Pilot Exploration, asked regulators at EPD in March for permission to drill two wells in rural southwest Georgia to see whether there’s oil and gas hidden beneath the landscape.

The “exploratory” wells are planned for Quitman County, a remote part of the state about an hour south of Columbus near the Alabama-Georgia border and Lake Walter F. George. According to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs’ 2025 estimate, Quitman County had just 2,254 residents, making it Georgia’s second-least populated county.

Pilot Exploration says it specializes in “frontier basins,” an industry term for areas that have not been thoroughly surveyed for oil or gas.

In its permit applications for the wells — dubbed “Georgia On My Mind Wells #1 and #2″ — the company says it plans to drill down more than a mile and a half, 8,000 feet, to see what’s underground.

Geological assessments have touched on this part of the Peach State, but most are decades old.

One of the few recent ones available, a 2010 assessment published by the U.S. Geological Survey, looked at whether fossil fuels exist beneath portions of several states surrounding the Gulf Coast. The USGS found there could be oil and gas under parts of the region, but offered few specifics on Georgia’s potential resources. It also didn’t assess whether any of it can extracted — or done so economically.

Pilot Exploration President and CEO Michael Gustin didn’t reveal what exactly drew the company to Quitman County, but questioned the conventional wisdom about its oil and gas potential. He said views have been shaped by limited data and technology.

“Using modern analytical techniques and a more comprehensive review of regional geology, we believe there is a strong basis to revisit those assumptions,” Gustin said in a written statement.

Outside experts agree this part of southwest Georgia certainly meets the definition of a “frontier basin.”

Chris Schenk, a USGS geologist and project chief for the National Oil and Gas Assessment, which periodically surveys parts of the U.S. for undiscovered resources, stressed the “tremendous amount of uncertainty” about the area.

“There’s been very little drilling and there’s very little known, so the uncertainty is significant,” Schenk said.

Ibrahim Çemen, a University of Alabama professor specializing in oil and gas exploration, said most of Earth’s major fossil fuel reserves are already being tapped, but there are still resources out there waiting to be discovered.

“There is still a chance,” Çemen said.

If burned for energy, oil and gas release heat-trapping greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. But beyond that, the exploratory drilling itself presents some environmental risks.

To assess the area’s geology, Pilot’s drilling will pass through freshwater aquifers that provide drinking water and irrigation for many rural Georgia communities. Any time heavy equipment punches through a reservoir, there is a risk of damage to the aquifer or groundwater contamination.

EPD said it’s mitigating those risks by requiring that the driller install solid casing around the borehole from the surface of the well to just below the aquifer, to prevent the hole from caving in. The agency said it’s also requiring the company take additional steps to protect against a blowout — an uncontrolled release of oil or gas — so “shallower water bearing aquifers are also protected during drilling activities.”

If the agency signs off on the drilling, these would be the first two exploratory oil and gas wells permitted in Georgia since 2014, when a company received permission to drill in Bartow County. The project did not lead to any commercial fossil fuel production.

Even if Pilot Exploration finds oil or gas beneath Quitman County, any actual extraction is likely a long way off. Production from a well would require a whole new set of permits from EPD.