Lost Hills Oil Field - History and Operations

History and Operations

Drillers Martin and Dudley discovered the Lost Hills Oil Field in July 1910 – accidentally. They were drilling a water well for livestock grazing; instead of finding groundwater, however, they struck oil, specifically the Etchegoin Pool at a depth of 530 feet (160 m). Other drillers, encouraged by the find, including the mighty Standard Oil of California, which had recently been subject to antitrust litigation and broken up by the Supreme Court, began drilling for more nearby; they soon found the Cahn and Reef Ridge pools, in 1913, and then the Tulare pool in 1915. There were relatively few wells on the field for the first several decades; indeed, by 1979, there were only 39 wells producing from the Monterey Formation, and each of these wells only produced an average of eight barrels per day. It took the development of advanced recovery technology to turn the Lost Hills into a high-producing oil field.

Unusual for a California oil field, the years of maximum recovery were not early in the 20th century, but recently: peak oil production from the Etchegoin Pool did not occur until the early 21st century, assisted by several enhanced recovery technologies, including water flooding and cyclic steam flooding. The early peak in production took place in 1917, during which 4 million barrels (640,000 m3) of oil were pumped; then production steadily declined, with a few spikes, until the enhanced recovery techniques which began to be employed in the 1960s began to pay off. In 1981 the field produced almost 6 million barrels (950,000 m3), and has remained a high producer, reaching close to 12 million barrels (1,900,000 m3) in 2006. During that year it had the fourth-largest production increase in the state, and preliminary estimates for 2007 show that production has increased yet again, to 12.2 million barrels (1,940,000 m3)

As of 1997, four pools – the Tulare, Etchegoin, Cahn, and Reef Ridge – continued to have active recovery operations using waterflooding, steam flooding, and fire flooding. As of 2008, the principal operators on the Lost Hills Field were Chevron Corp. and Aera Energy LLC.