Sometimes innovative ideas are washed away and sometimes brilliant ideas are overlooked. Malcolm Bendall may be a genius who has been overlooked.

For over 30 years, Bendall, the CEO of the Kansas-based company Empire Energy Corporation International has been trying to convince the world that there is undiscovered oil and gas buried in Tasmania, Australia where neither has ever been found. In the process, Bendall has raised tens of millions of dollars for seismic and other geological studies that indicate the possibility that he may have been right. Soon, we will know if Bendall is right.

Last week, Bendall announced that Empire has become the first company to drill for oil and gas in Tasmania. Upon starting this process, it has been discovered that the independent firm RPS Energy has estimated the prospective presence of over 2.2 Billion barrels of trapped petroleum on Empire’s Tasmanian licensed area.