150+ Million Gallons of Oil Equivalent Found Near LA
Occidental Petroleum Corporation announced they have made the largest natural gas and oil discovery in California for 35 years.
The current assessment shows there could be between 150 million and 250 million gross barrels of oil equivalent. The discovery was made in Kern County, north of Los Angeles 130 miles. About two thirds of the discovery is believed to be natural gas. Energy analyst Fadel Gheit remarked: “Occidental’s reserves as of the end of last year were about 3 billion barrels. Even if you take the low end of their estimate, it’s a very meaningful find.”
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Six wells have been drilled so far to define the area. More wells are going to be drilled to determine if there is even more gas and oil in the area.
Occidental chairman and CEO, Dr. Ray Irani said of the huge find, “It is probable there are additional reserves outside of the defined area and it is possible that structures of this type exist elsewhere (in Oxy-owned land). We plan to drill wells to exploit these opportunities over the next 5 to 10 years.”
Subsurface oil there is too thick to work with easily, so it is injected with steam which heats the oil making it less viscous and easier to pump up to the surface. The steam is also used to spin turbines which produce electricty - perhaps enough to power 1.5 million homes.
Occidental owns 80% interest in the reserves, with Chevron owning the remainder. Occidental is the largest natural gas supplier and third largest oil supplier in the state of California.
Image Credit: CalWest
“Subsurface oil there is too thick to work with easily, so it is injected with steam which heats the oil making it more viscous and easier to pump up to the surface.”
LESS viscous, not more.
It is a modest discovery. More important, the longer we drag on the process of seeking more fossil fuel and using more fossil fuel, the more the earth will heat up. In the end, when the fossil fuel runs out, we will be caught in a hot, low-available-energy, dilemma.
Forethought may be called for.
Hmmm, in sunny California eh… so do they plan on using solar energy to produce steam? They could tap the oil and power steam turbines with solar made steam…
While it’s a positive sign that there are still untapped reserves within the United States, such discoveries are few and far between, as the country has been mapped and explored for centuries and the truly big finds are being depleted.