Total Bastard Oil commenced drilling operations at Restfield Memorial Cemetery on Tuesday morning, positioning a 90-foot rig between the Voss family mausoleum and Section G, an area the company's geological survey describes as containing "promising organic deposits at shallow depth."

The permit was approved by the Gnu Zoning Board in nine minutes, a process the board's clerk characterized as "expedited but complete." Restfield, which has operated as a burial ground since 1931, holds approximately 14,000 interments, a figure the cemetery's records office notes has grown "faster than the number of documented deaths on the island" — a discrepancy attributed in filings to "informal placements" in Section G, which sits directly beneath the drill site and is not marked on any public map.

A Total Bastard Oil spokesperson confirmed that the deposits of interest are "partly geological and partly not," and that the company's extraction process is "agnostic as to the source of the hydrocarbons." Pressed on whether the material included decomposed human remains — Section G having received, over the past decade, an undisclosed number of individuals recovered from the wooded parcels where Peter Thiel conducts his annual hunts — the spokesperson said the company "does not ask where the juice comes from, only whether it burns." Preliminary samples, she added, had "exceeded expectations."

The cemetery's groundskeeper, Gerald Ontkean, said he had been reassigned to "perimeter duties" and instructed not to approach the rig. "They told me the deceased signed waivers," he said. "I asked to see one. They said the waiver was implied by the act of decomposing on company-adjacent land."