North Belridge Oil Field

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The North Belridge Oil Field in Kern County, California. Other oil fields are shown in gray. NorthBelridge.png
The North Belridge Oil Field in Kern County, California. Other oil fields are shown in gray.

The North Belridge Oil Field is a large oil field along California State Route 33 in the northwestern portion of Kern County, California, about 45 miles west of Bakersfield. It is contiguous with the larger South Belridge Oil Field to the southeast, in a region of highly productive and mature fields. Discovered in 1912, it has had a cumulative production of 136,553,000 barrels (21,710,200 m3) of oil, and retains 27,443,000 barrels (4,363,100 m3) in reserve, as of the end of 2006, making it the 40th largest oil field in the state. [1]

California State Route 33 highway in California

State Route 33 is a north–south state highway in the U.S. state of California. It runs north from Ventura through the Transverse Ranges and the western side of the San Joaquin Valley to a point east of Tracy. SR 33 replaced part of U.S. Route 399 in 1964 during the "great renumbering" of routes. In the unincorporated sections of Kern County it is known as the West Side Highway. In addition, the California Legislature designated the entire Kern County portion as the Petroleum Highway in 2004. The southernmost portion in Ventura is a freeway known as the Ojai Freeway, while it is known as the Maricopa Highway from Ojai to Maricopa.

Kern County, California County in California, United States

Kern County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 839,631. Its county seat is Bakersfield.

Contents

Setting

The oil field is located along the west side of State Route 33, beginning about four miles south of its junction with State Route 46. It is about 5 miles (8.0 km) long by 1 mile (1.6 km) across, paralleling the highway on the southwest. The low Antelope Hills run adjacent to the field on the southwest, and the entire area slopes gently down to the northeast, towards the San Joaquin Valley; agricultural fields and orchards begin on the other side of Highway 33 from the field. Elevations on the field range from about 600 to 700 feet (180 to 210 m) above sea level, while the floor of the valley to the northeast is around 250 feet (76 m). The main production area of the field is almost completely flat.

California State Route 46 highway in California

State Route 46 is an east–west state highway in the U.S. state of California. It is a major crossing of the Coast Ranges, connecting SR 1 on the Central Coast near Cambria and US 101 in Paso Robles with SR 99 at Famoso in the San Joaquin Valley.

Antelope Hills, California

The Antelope Hills are a low mountain range in the Transverse Ranges, in western Kern County, California. In 1910 Arnold and Johnson from the United States Geological Survey proposed the name "Antelope Hills" for "the group of low hills [that] are a range for the few wild antelope left in this region."

The North Belridge Oil Field is part of the larger Belridge Producing Complex of Aera Energy LLC, which includes also the much larger oil fields of South Belridge, Lost Hills, and Cymric, all in northwestern Kern County. Other nearby oil fields include the small Antelope Hills and McDonald Anticline fields several miles to the southwest, and the large Lost Hills Oil Field to the northeast, adjacent to the town of Lost Hills.

Aera Energy LLC (Aera) is a natural gas, oil exploration and production company jointly owned by Shell Oil Company and ExxonMobil headquartered in Bakersfield, California. In addition, Aera Energy LLC is a California limited liability company, and one of California’s largest oil and natural gas producers, with an approximate 2015 revenues of over $2 billion. Aera is operated as a stand-alone company through its board of managers.1

South Belridge Oil Field

The South Belridge Oil Field is a large oil field in northwestern Kern County, San Joaquin Valley, California, about forty miles west of Bakersfield. Discovered in 1911, and having a cumulative production of over 1,500 million barrels (240,000,000 m3) of oil at the end of 2008, it is the fourth-largest oil field in California, after the Midway-Sunset Oil Field, Kern River Oil Field, and Wilmington Oil Field, and is the sixth-most productive field in the United States. Its estimated remaining reserves, as of the end of 2008, were around 494 million barrels (78,500,000 m3), the second-largest in the state, and it had 6,253 active wells. The principal operator on the field was Aera Energy LLC, a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil. Additionally, the field included the only onshore wells in California owned and operated by ExxonMobil.

Lost Hills Oil Field

The Lost Hills Oil Field is a large oil field in the Lost Hills Range, north of the town of Lost Hills in western Kern County, California, in the United States.

The climate in the North Belridge area is arid to semi-arid, with an average annual rainfall of 5 to 6 inches (130 to 150 mm), almost all in the winter months. Temperatures in the summer routinely top 100 °F (38 °C); occasional freezes occur in the winter. Native vegetation in the vicinity of the field is mostly grassland and sparse scrub, although most of the vegetation has been removed from the area of most active operations, with the land in these central areas now almost completely barren except for oil rigs, drilling pads, and associated equipment.

Wells on the North Belridge Field, stretching to the horizon. NorthBelridgePanorama.jpg
Wells on the North Belridge Field, stretching to the horizon.

Geology

The North Belridge Field, like the South Belridge and the others nearby (Cymric, Monument Junction, McKittrick, Antelope Hills, and others) is near the western margin of the huge San Joaquin Basin,a region of extensive sedimentary rocks of varying porosity and permeability, containing anticlinal folds and copious quantities of petroleum, much of which has been extracted in the early and middle 20th century. [2] The San Andreas Fault, the boundary of the Pacific and North American plates, borders the basin on the west; it is about 10 miles (16 km) from the North Belridge Field, on the other side of the Temblor Range.

Cymric Oil Field

The Cymric Oil Field is a large oil field in Kern County, California in the United States. While only the 14th-largest oil field in California in total size, in terms of total remaining reserves it ranks fifth, with the equivalent of over 119 million barrels (18,900,000 m3) still in the ground. Production at Cymric has been increasing faster than at any other California oil field.

McKittrick Oil Field

The McKittrick Oil Field is a large oil and gas field in western Kern County, California. The town of McKittrick overlies the northeastern portion of the oil field. Recognized as an oil field in the 19th century, but known by Native Americans for thousands of years due to its tar seeps, the field is ranked 19th in California by total ultimate oil recovery, and has had a cumulative production of over 303 million barrels (48,200,000 m3) of oil. The principal operators of the field as of 2008 were Chevron Corp. and Aera Energy LLC, but many independent oil exploration and production companies were also active on the field. The California Department of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) estimates approximately 20 million recoverable barrels of oil remain in the ground.

San Andreas Fault A continental transform fault through California between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate

The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly 1,200 kilometers (750 mi) through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal). The fault divides into three segments, each with different characteristics and a different degree of earthquake risk. The slip rate along the fault ranges from 20 to 35 mm /yr.

In the North Belridge Field, most oil is trapped in anticlinal formations. There are eight separate pools within the field. The following list gives them in order by depth from top to bottom, along with the year of discovery for each: [3]

Anticline geological term

In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the location where the curvature is greatest, and the limbs are the sides of the fold that dip away from the hinge. Anticlines can be recognized and differentiated from antiforms by a sequence of rock layers that become progressively older toward the center of the fold. Therefore, if age relationships between various rock strata are unknown, the term antiform should be used.

The age range of the pools and their corresponding geologic formations is from Pliocene-Miocene for the uppermost members, to Eocene for the oceanic Y Sand, which is at a depth of over 8,500 feet (2,600 m). The fourth pool – the Temblor Sand – is within the Monterey Formation, the wide-ranging unit throughout much of coastal California which is the probable source rock for much of the state's oil. The Oligocene portions of the stratigraphy, including the Bloemer/Belridge 64/Gibson pools, are an old submarine fan, cut off from its source units by movement of the plates along the San Andreas Fault. [4]

The Pliocene Epoch is the epoch in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58 million years BP. It is the second and youngest epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch. Prior to the 2009 revision of the geologic time scale, which placed the four most recent major glaciations entirely within the Pleistocene, the Pliocene also included the Gelasian stage, which lasted from 2.588 to 1.806 million years ago, and is now included in the Pleistocene.

The Miocene is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about 23.03 to 5.333 million years ago (Ma). The Miocene was named by Charles Lyell; its name comes from the Greek words μείων and καινός and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene is preceded by the Oligocene and is followed by the Pliocene.

The Eocene Epoch, lasting from 56 to 33.9 million years ago, is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. The end is set at a major extinction event called the Grande Coupure or the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Siberia and in what is now Chesapeake Bay. As with other geologic periods, the strata that define the start and end of the epoch are well identified, though their exact dates are slightly uncertain.

Oil viscosity and quality from the field is widely variable. Greka's lease produces mostly heavy oil, with an API of around 13 and a high sulfur content, which it uses either as feedstock for its asphalt refinery in Santa Maria (when the price of oil is low) or sells on the open market (when the price is high). [5] Some of the pools produce light oil with an API as high as 52, for example the "R Sand", at which production peaked in 1951. [6]

History, production, and operations

View into the Greka operations on their lease on the North Belridge Field; the Temblor Range is in the distance. GrekaBelridge2.jpg
View into the Greka operations on their lease on the North Belridge Field; the Temblor Range is in the distance.

The discovery well was drilled by Mannell-Minor Petroleum Company, "M.M. No. 1", in 1912, into the "Fractured Shale" Pool. No initial production data were compiled, and it was not until 1915 that oil recovery amounts in barrels per day are available. [7]

In 1979, Shell Oil acquired Belridge Oil Company, the long-time operator of the field, and maintained most of the production until 1997, at which time Aera Energy LLC, a joint venture of Shell and Mobil Oil Company, took over. However the North Belridge component of the giant field had several small independent operators, most of which have either left or have been acquired by larger companies. Current operators on the field as of 2008 include Aera Energy LLC; American Energy Operations, Inc.; and Greka Energy. In 2008 Aera was the largest operator, with approximately 1,300 active oil wells. American Energy had approximately 150, and Greka Energy 73. American Energy produces from the Dow Chanslor lease, which straddles the boundary between the North and South Belridge fields, while Greka maintains a group of production wells along Highway 33 in the northeast portion, in the Belridge, Gibson and McPhail leases. [8]

Several enhanced recovery methods have been employed at the North Belridge Field, including cyclic steam (the "huff and puff" method, on the heavy oil in the Tulare pool); steam flooding; gas injection (on the Temblor Sands and the Y Sand); and waterflooding. [3]

Over 2,800 wells had been drilled on the field since its discovery in 1912. [9]

Related Research Articles

Temblor Range

The Temblor Range is a mountain range within the California Coast Ranges, at the southwestern extremity of the San Joaquin Valley in California in the United States. It runs in a northwest-southeasterly direction along the borders of Kern County and San Luis Obispo County. The name of the range is from the Spanish word for "earthquake" (terremoto). The San Andreas Fault Zone runs parallel to the range at the base of its western slope, on the eastern side of the Carrizo Plain, while the Antelope Plain, location of the enormous Midway Sunset, South Belridge, and Cymric oil fields, lies to the northeast.

Midway-Sunset Oil Field

The Midway-Sunset Oil Field is a large oil field in Kern County, San Joaquin Valley, California in the United States. It is the largest known oilfield in California and the third largest in the United States.

Coalinga Oil Field

The Coalinga Oil Field is a large oil field in western Fresno County, California, in the United States. It surrounds the town of Coalinga, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, to the west of Interstate 5, at the foot of the Diablo Range. Discovered in the late 19th century, it became active around 1890, and is now the eighth-largest oil field in California, with reserves totaling approximately 58 million barrels (9,200,000 m3), and over 1,600 active oil wells. The principal operators on the field, as of 2008, were Chevron Corp. and Aera Energy LLC.

Buena Vista Oil Field oil field in California, United States

The Buena Vista Oil Field, formerly the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 2 (NPR-2) is a large oil field in Kern County, San Joaquin Valley, California in the United States. Discovered in 1909, and having a cumulative production of approximately 667 million barrels (106,000,000 m3), it is the tenth-largest oil field in California. It is also one of the closest to being exhausted, having a total reserve of only about one percent of its original oil, and having produced a mere 713,000 barrels (113,400 m3) in 2006.

San Ardo Oil Field oil field

The San Ardo Oil Field is a large oil field in Monterey County, California, in the United States. It is in the upper Salinas Valley, about five miles (8 km) south of the small town of San Ardo, and about twenty miles (32 km) north of Paso Robles. With an estimated ultimate recovery of 532,496,000 barrels (84,660,100 m3) of oil, it is the 8th-largest producing oil field in California, and of the top twenty California oil fields in size, it is the most recent to be discovered (1947). As of the end of 2006, the principal operators of the field were Chevron Corp. and Aera Energy LLC.

Kettleman North Dome Oil Field

The Kettleman North Dome Oil Field is a large oil and gas field in Kings and Fresno counties, California. Discovered in 1928, it is the fifteenth largest field in the state by total ultimate oil recovery, and of the top twenty oil fields it is the closest to exhaustion, with less than one-half of one percent of its original oil remaining in place.

Kern Front Oil Field

The Kern Front Oil Field is a large oil and gas field in the lower Sierra Nevada foothills in Kern County, California. Discovered in 1912, and with a cumulative production of around 210 million barrels (33,000,000 m3) of oil, it ranks 29th in size in the state, and is believed to retain approximately ten percent of its original oil, according to the official estimates of the California Department of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR). It is adjacent to the much larger Kern River Oil Field, which is to the southeast, and the Mount Poso Oil Field to the north.

Missouri Triangle, California Unincorporated community in California, United States

Missouri Triangle is an unincorporated community in Kern County, California. It is located 10 miles (16 km) north of McKittrick, at an elevation of 561 feet (171 m).

Ventura Oil Field oilfield north of the city of Ventura, California, United States

The Ventura Oil Field is a large and currently productive oil field in the hills immediately north of the city of Ventura in southern California in the United States. It is bisected by California State Route 33, the freeway connecting Ventura to Ojai, and is about eight miles (13 km) long by two across, with the long axis aligned east to west. Discovered in 1919, and with a cumulative production of just under a billion barrels of oil as of 2008, it is the tenth-largest producing oil field in California, retaining approximately 50 million barrels in reserve, and had 423 wells still producing. As of 2009 it was entirely operated by Aera Energy LLC.

Rincon Oil Field large oil field on the central coast of southern California

The Rincon Oil Field is a large oil field on the coast of southern California, about 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the city of Ventura, and about 20 miles (32 km) east-southeast of the city of Santa Barbara. It is the westernmost onshore field in a series of three fields which follow the Ventura Anticline, an east-west trending feature paralleling the Transverse Ranges. Discovered in 1927, the oil field is ranked 36th in California by size of recoverable oil reserves, and while mostly depleted – now having, by California Department of Conservation estimates, only about 2.5% of its original oil – it remains productive, with 77 wells active at the beginning of 2008. Oil produced in the field flows through the M-143 pipeline, which parallels U.S. Highway 101 southeast to the Ventura Pump Station, at which point it joins a Tosco pipeline which carries it to Los Angeles area refineries. As of 2009, the primary operators of the field were Occidental Petroleum for the onshore portion, and Greka Energy for the offshore portion. The offshore part of the field is operated mainly from Rincon Island.

Brea-Olinda Oil Field

The Brea-Olinda Oil Field is a large oil field in northern Orange County and Los Angeles County, California, along the southern edge of the Puente Hills, about four miles (6 km) northeast of Fullerton, and adjacent to the city of Brea. Discovered in 1880, the field is the sixteenth largest in California by cumulative production, and was the first of California's largest 50 oil fields to be found. It has produced over 412 million barrels of oil in the 130 years since it was first drilled, and retains approximately 19 million barrels in reserve recoverable with current technology. As of the beginning of 2009, 475 wells remained active on the field, operated by several independent oil companies, including Linn Energy, BreitBurn Energy Partners L.P., Cooper & Brain, and Thompson Energy.

Russell Ranch Oil Field

The Russell Ranch Oil Field is an oil and gas field in the Cuyama Valley of northern Santa Barbara and southern San Luis Obispo Counties, California, in the United States. Discovered in 1948, and reaching peak production in 1950, it has produced over 68 million barrels (10,800,000 m3) of oil in its lifetime; with only an estimated 216,000 barrels (34,300 m3) of recoverable oil remaining, and having produced around 66,000 in 2008, it is considered to be close to exhaustion. The primary operator on the field as of 2010 is E&B Natural Resources, which also runs the nearby South Cuyama Oil Field.

Guijarral Hills Oil Field

The Guijarral Hills Oil Field is a formerly-productive oil and gas field near Coalinga on the western side of the Central Valley in central California in the United States. Discovered in 1948, and having produced 5.4 million barrels (860,000 m3) of oil during its peak year in 1950, it now has but one active oil well producing a little over a barrel of oil a day, and is very near to exhaustion, with only 343,000 recoverable barrels of oil remaining throughout its 2,515-acre (10.18 km2) extent according to the official California State Department of Conservation estimate. As of 2010, the only active operator was Longview Production Company.

Edison Oil Field

The Edison Oil Field is a large oil field in Kern County, California, in the United States, in the southeastern part of the San Joaquin Valley and adjacent foothills east-southeast of Bakersfield. The field has a total productive area of over 8,000 acres (32 km2), most of which is intermingled with agricultural land uses; oil pumps and storage tanks are surrounded with row crops and orchards in much of the field's extent. Discovered in 1928, and with a cumulative production of 149 million barrels (23,700,000 m3) of oil as of 2008, and having over 6 million barrels (950,000 m3) in reserve, it is ranked 38th among California's oil fields by total ultimate recovery. It is a mature field in decline, and is run entirely by small independent operators. As of 2008, there were 40 different oil companies active on the field, one of the most in the state for a single field. 914 wells remained active on the field, averaging only two barrels of oil per well per day from the dwindling reservoirs.

Zaca Oil Field

The Zaca Oil Field is an oil field in central Santa Barbara County, California, about 20 miles southeast of Santa Maria. One of several oil fields in the county which produce heavy oil from the Monterey Formation, the field is hidden within a region of rolling hills, north of the Santa Ynez Valley. As of 2011, the principal operator of the oil field is Greka Energy and the operator of the "Zaca Field Extension Project" is Underground Energy. The field is known to contain heavy crude oil and Underground Energy has recently discovered a lower sub-thrust block in the field, which was not previously produced by the field's historical operators. The field was discovered in 1942, reached peak production in 1954, and remains active with more than thirty oil wells and continues to grow.

Cat Canyon Oil Field

The Cat Canyon Oil Field is a large oil field in the Solomon Hills of central Santa Barbara County, California, about 10 miles southeast of Santa Maria. It is the largest oil field in Santa Barbara County, and as of 2010 is the 20th-largest in California by cumulative production.

References

Notes

Coordinates: 35°32′43″N119°47′39″W / 35.5452°N 119.7942°W / 35.5452; -119.7942