The giant oil rig is gone from Towsley Canyon, less than a year after Canadian wildcatters dragged it there with dreams of coaxing black gold from an old, unused oil field owned by Chevron Corp.

They found oil in the Santa Clarita woodlands, all right, but it's mixed with so much water that it's not worth retrieving. And the oilmen, a consortium of Canadian geologists and investors, plus the Samedan Oil Corp., based in Ardmore, Okla., have run through nearly $7 million--almost all of their capital.

So for now, at least, operations have been shut down.

Still, Robert Grey, a 64-year-old wildcatter who is president of the company with the largest stake in the enterprise, says he's not giving up.

"We're in this for the big one," said Grey, who is president of Riva Petroleum, a Canadian company listed on the Vancouver stock exchange that owns 45% of the project. "And the only way to get to the big one is to drill another hole."

Grey is convening a meeting of the consortium participants--Loumic Resources, Tusk Resources, Samedan, a division of Noble Affiliates, and Riva--on Jan. 28 to try to persuade them to drill again, an endeavor that will cost another $4.3 million, Grey said. One earlier participant dropped out altogether, and another, Layfield Resources, is no longer an active partner, although it will receive 1.5% of the proceeds if the well produces oil or gas.

Oklahoma-based Samedan, which has been running operations for the Canadian project and holds an 8% stake, has not decided whether it will stay on, said production superintendent Gary Brune.

Grey said that geological tests conducted since the project began last year indicate that there is an oil deposit on the land, but it can't be reached by the existing well.

"It's not as speculative as it was when we first went in, because we've got the geology pretty well figured out now," Grey said. "There is definitely something down there."

If Grey persuades the partners to stay on, and they raise the additional money, the group will face two choices: make the existing well give up more oil, or drill another well.

The partners are working on land leased from Chevron on one of the oldest oil fields in California. The oil deposits there, part of a geologic formation called the Pico Anticline, have been known for more than 1,000 years, ever since local Indians used the tar that bubbled up from the ground to seal their baskets.