Oxy oil discovery could spark new interest in California's energy potential

Los Angeles Times ^ | September 24, 2009 | Ronald D. White

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The biggest find in the state in 35 years, somewhere in Kern County, could herald new exploration in California and the U.S., experts say. But some worry it could lead to a false sense of security.

A few years ago, Occidental Petroleum Corp. executive Stephen I. Chazen sounded like a cryptologist out of a Dan Brown novel as he told investors that an oil bonanza awaited any outfit that could "crack the code" of California's seismically fractured underground.

Occidental's engineers may have done it.

The Westwood company revealed in July that it had found the equivalent of 150 million to 250 million barrels of oil and natural gas in an undisclosed part of Kern County using techniques that the oil company's executives would rather not talk about. It was California's biggest find in 35 years.

Some experts say it could herald a period of new exploration in California and the U.S.

"Certainly this kind of success will send other people back to California to rethink the geology and rethink the theories of the area," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil industry "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power."

Joe Hahn knows firsthand the significance of finding that much crude in California.

A former oil reservoir engineer for Arco, now owned by oil giant BP, Hahn said that exploration in the state has been rife with failures and false leads.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

And they aren’t telling where it is....

[wny]

anyone care to bet not a drop of that oil reaches the surface in less than 10 years?

[Crazieman]

American companies will be banned from drilling it, while Chinese companies drill it, refine it in Cuba, and sell it to Europe.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Since we can’t drill it, it doesn’t make any difference.

[VOA]

“But some worry it could lead to a false sense of security.”

LOL!!!

It’s a “false sense of security” that leads the nutburgers in California
(Florida, Massachussetts, etc.) to NOT pursue drilling for possible
oil and gas...or to put up off-shore wind-power turbines.

[DManA]

But some worry it could lead to a false sense of security.

There is enough oil in the world to fuel our growth for 100 years. Affordable abundant energy is a statist’s nightmare. It stands in the way of their war on wealth.

[Made In The USA]

Oh it will get drilled and refined... Obama will ask his Saudi masters, or maybe Chavez, do it.

[VOA]

A few years ago, Occidental Petroleum Corp. executive Stephen I.
Chazen sounded like a cryptologist out of a Dan Brown novel as
he told investors that an oil bonanza awaited any outfit that
could "crack the code" of California's
seismically fractured underground.

My naive speculation is that "seismically fractured underground"
is maybe the operative phrase...that would send many of the mom-and-pop
natural-gas drilling companies into the area...but for all the
NUT-CASE regulations in California.

That's because (if I understand correctly), the new technique for
enhanced natural gas recovery is the fracturing of shale/rock.
Perhaps the guy from Oxy was trying to say to the natural-gas
folks: THE ROCK HAS ALREADY BEEN FRACTURED; YOU DON'T NEED TO
INJECT SO MUCH WATER AND CHEMICALS TO FRACTURE ROCK TO GET GOOD
YIELDS OF NATURAL GAS!!!!

[ridesthemiles]

Sonce Al Gore is the major stockholder of Oxy- this might get permission to be drilled.

Everything else has been put on the shelf.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

In the next century PEMEX or someone will get down to extracting it. Taxes and bribes will go to Aztlan Nuevo or some such creature. California USA will have ceased to exist. China will hold the mortgage.

[hosepipe]

Gee.... I wonder how much oil/methane is off the east coast of the US... no one knows.. must be a lot.. Companys can’t even prospect there.. Course there is the Bakken field and the new fields off the Texas and Florida.. OH! and the oil sands and shale.. that DWARF a few million barrels.. in Mexifornia..

[Dallas59]

Anyone can drill there...except evil US oil companies.

[TruthBeforeAll]

Hmmmm. Let’s see Kalifornia put it’s money (or lack there of) where it’s mouth is and say that for the “good of the environment” they will not tap the energy resource right under their noses. Oh the moral dilemma, drill or continue into bankruptcy.

[Hans]

The vision of a happy placid population, living in harmony with nature, Ho Chi Mihn sandals and grass huts. Same vision old Pol Pot had.
The left is tomented by its hatreds and need to rule.
My Mother, bless her was given to say, we would have to wait until the 60's people died off. She was right about one thing they will have to be removed from authority one way or another.

[Hillary'sMoralVoid]

Let me see here.......would the public like thousands of acres of wind farms to produce the same amount of energy as a couple of small holes in the ground? What is more environmentally sound?

[Larry - Moe and Curly]

The oil is along the San Andreas fault. It’s currently lubricating the tectonic plates, except for the occasional rock that slips in there causing the occasional earthquake.

They’re going to pump all the oil out and with the lubrication gone.... OHMYGOD! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!

[bestintxas]

According to the George Marshall Institute http://www.marshall.org/index.php
to replace a typical oil well covering an acre or two at most, it requires several hundred acres of fertile Midwest prairie land (that could be producing food for the world or beneficially removing CO2 from the atmosphere) to be plowed up as well as a million gallons of fresh water (that could be used as drinking water) to be utilized in order to make the ethanol to replace its energy equivalent.

In the process, the diesel and other energy needs to produce the grain and process it into ethanol uses more energy than one would get anyway at the end.

How environmentaly sound(or financially savvy) is that policy anyway?

[Waco]

Kali don’t need no stinkin oil,Kali don’t need no stinkin revenue can’t they get it thru their stinkin heads??

[tubebender]

It’s in Merle Haggard’s former back yard...

[BOBTHENAILER]

Saw this a couple of days ago——sounds huge.

[BOBTHENAILER]

THE ROCK HAS ALREADY BEEN FRACTURED; YOU DON'T NEED TO INJECT SO MUCH WATER AND CHEMICALS TO FRACTURE ROCK TO GET GOOD YIELDS OF NATURAL GAS!!!!

You got something against hydraulic frac's?

[AuntB]

“Sonce Al Gore is the major stockholder of Oxy- this might get permission to be drilled.

Everything else has been put on the shelf.”

Yes, and Gore sold off our refinery at Elk Hills in Bakersfield to....Oxy!

[snip]
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=468

[snip]Occidental’s planned drilling of the Elk Hills doesn’t only threaten the memory of the Kitanemuk [Indian tribe}. Environmentalists say a rare species of fox, lizard and the kangaroo rat would also be threatened by Oxy’s plans. A lawsuit has been filed under the Endangered Species Act. But none of that has given pause to Occidental or the politician who helped engineer the sale of the drilling rights to the federally-owned Elk Hills. That politician is Al Gore.

Gore recommended that the Elk Hills be sold as part of his 1995 “Reinventing Government” National Performance Review program. Gore-confidant (and former campaign manager) Tony Cohelo served on the board of directors of the private company hired to assess the sale’s environmental consequences. The sale was a windfall for Oxy. Within weeks of the announced purchase Occidental stock rose ten percent.

That was good news for Gore. Despite controversy over Dick Cheney’s plans to keep stock options if elected, most Americans don’t know that we already have a vice president with oil company stocks. Before the Elk Hills sale, Al Gore controlled between $250,000-$500,000 of Occidental stock (he is executor of a trust that he says goes only to his mother, but will revert to him upon her death). After the sale, Gore began disclosing between $500,000 and $1 million of his significantly more valuable stock.

Nowhere is Al Gore’s environmental hypocrisy more glaring than when it comes to his relationship with Occidental. While on the one hand talking tough about his “big oil” opponents and waxing poetic about indigenous peoples in his 1992 book “Earth in the Balance,” the Elk Hills sale and other deals show that money has always been more important to Al Gore than ideals.