This is the 4350th most frequent French word.
forage
Drilling or boring, typically to extract resources.
Here, 'forage' means 'drilling', referring to the process of extracting petroleum from the ground.
Le forage pétrolier dans cette région a augmenté récemment.
Oil drilling in this region has increased recently.
In this sentence, 'forage' refers to the act of drilling or boring into ground or rock to construct a tunnel.
Ils ont utilisé un équipement sophistiqué pour le forage du tunnel.
They used sophisticated equipment for the drilling of the tunnel.
Here, 'forage' again refers to 'drilling', specifically as a technique to uncover buried resources, such as water.