Summerland Oil Field
The Summerland Oil Field (and Summerland Offshore Oil Field) is an inactive
Setting
The formerly productive region of the Summerland Oil Field is on the coast of southern Santa Barbara County, about four miles (6 km) east of the city of Santa Barbara, and includes most of the town of Summerland, as well as adjacent parts of Montecito. It covers an area of a bit more than a square mile – 740 acres (3.0 km2) – of which 380, a little more than half, is onshore.[6]
The climate is Mediterranean, with an equable temperature regime year-round, and most of the precipitation falling between October and April in the form of rain. Freezes are rare. Runoff is towards the ocean. Bluffs rise sharply behind the beach, but rather than having an extended plateau behind the bluffs, as is the case along much of the south coast of Santa Barbara County, the land rises with a moderate slope towards the Santa Ynez Mountains. The town of Summerland is built on the coast-facing part of this hillside, taking advantage of the ocean view, with modern residential and commercial development covering long-abandoned oil wells. The offshore part of the main Summerland field was in shallow water adjacent to the beach, and was drilled from piers. A popular beach extends the length of the former oil field, immediately below the town, and a park – Lookout Park – sits atop the bluffs.
Summerland Offshore Oil Field is a separate field in the Santa Barbara Channel about one and a half miles offshore, but within the 3-mile limit inside of which oil leasing is subject to state rather than federal regulation. Two oil platforms, named Hilda and Hazel, formerly stood on this field; Chevron Corp. dismantled them in 1996 and production from this field ended.[5] The Carpinteria Offshore Oil Field, about four miles (6 km) to the southeast, also once contained a pair of platforms dismantled that same year, and its three remaining platforms outside the 3-mile (4.8 km) limit are visible from the shore at Summerland.
Geology
The Summerland field is contained in a series of
Oil in the Casitas Formation is shallow, at an average depth of only 140 feet (43 m), accounting for its early discovery and easy exploitation. In the Vaqueros formation the average depth to oil is 1,400 feet (430 m) in the main Summerland field, and 7,000 feet (2,100 m) in the Summerland Offshore field.[9]
History, operations, and production
Oil and asphalt seeps in the vicinity of the Summerland field were known since prehistoric times, as the native
By 1895, wooden derricks had sprouted across the beaches and bluffs of
Seeing that the
Development of the Summerland Field was not entirely without controversy, even in its earliest years. The boom from the first oil find was so spectacular that after the hundreds of wells already put in had begun to run dry, drillers attempted to expand their area of operations uncomfortably close to Santa Barbara. In the late 1890s, a crowd of vigilantes headed by Reginald Fernald, a local newspaper publisher, tore down a drilling rig erected on Miramar Beach itself (now adjacent to a luxury hotel).[15]
The Summerland field had an early peak in production followed by a precipitous decline. A severe winter storm in 1903 destroyed many of the flimsy wooden derricks on the wharves and beach, and by 1906 most of the oil production had ended, leaving behind abandoned derricks, many of which stood for decades.[7] Drillers discovered a new deeper pool in the field in 1929, in the Vaqueros Sandstone, at a depth of about 1,400 feet (430 m), but the wells at that time were less numerous and obtrusive. Also in 1929, the Mesa Oil Field was discovered, just about six miles (10 km) to the west of the Summerland field and within the city of Santa Barbara itself; the Vaqueros Sandstone was the oil-bearing unit there as well. Peak annual production for the onshore part of the Summerland field was actually in 1929, at 118,519 barrels, from the Vaqueros, but this too was soon exhausted.[10] Production in the field ceased entirely in 1939, and the remaining abandoned structures – wharves and derricks and associated equipment – were removed.[10][12] During the entire period of operation of the field, over 412 oil wells were drilled.[7]
Summerland Offshore Oil Field
The Summerland Offshore Oil Field – distinct from the offshore portion of the main Summerland field, as it was more than a mile from shore – was not discovered until 1957. Its oil was from the same source rock as the deeper pool of the onshore field, the Vaqueros Sandstone, but the API gravity of the oil was lower (35) allowing it to flow freely.[16] This field was drilled from two oil platforms, Hilda and Hazel, erected in 1958 and 1960 respectively. Platform Hazel was the first platform in California to be constructed onshore and towed to the site by barges. Both were anchored to the sea floor, which was approximately 100 feet (30 m) underneath each platform.[5] They produced a cumulative total of 27.6 million barrels of oil and 97.8 million cubic feet of natural gas before being demolished in 1996.[5] Peak production from the Summerland Offshore field was in 1964, at almost 3.8 million barrels, but the cost to maintain the operation, combined with the diminishing returns from the field, and public sentiment opposing drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel – as these platforms were close to the site of the notorious 1969 oil spill – led their operator, Chevron Corp., to shut them down.[5][16]
While neither field is producing in the present day, periodic attempts have been made to find and cap leaking wells from the operations in the late 19th and early 20th century. In those early years of the petroleum industry, there was little to no regulation of operating practice, and
References
- ^ ISBN 0-8229-5663-2.
- ^ California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR). California Oil and Gas Fields, Volumes I, II and III. Vol. I (1998), Vol. II (1992), Vol. III (1982). p. 681. PDF file available on CD from www.consrv.ca.gov.
- ISBN 0-7425-1026-3
- ^ Dibblee, Thomas. Geology of the central Santa Ynez Mountains, Santa Barbara County, California. Bulletin 186, California Division of Mines and Geology. San Francisco, 1966.
- ^ a b c d e Basavalinganadoddi, Chandrashekar; Paul B. Mount II (2004). "Abandonment of Chevron Platforms Hazel, Hilda, Hope and Heidi" (PDF). Proceedings of the Fourteenth (2004) Annual International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference. Toulon, France. p. 468. Retrieved November 29, 2009.
- ^ DOGGR, pp. 534-536
- ^ a b c d e f Ira Leifer et al., "Oil emissions from nearshore and onshore Summerland: Final Report." OSPR Technical Publication No. 07- 001. State of California Department of Fish and Game - Office of Spill Prevention and Response. 1700 K St., Sacramento, Calif. 95814.
- ^ DOGGR, p. 534-536
- ^ DOGGR, p. 678-679
- ^ a b c DOGGR, p. 536
- ^ Prutzman, Paul W. (1913). Petroleum in Southern California. Sacramento, California: California State Mining Bureau. p. 406.
- ^ ISBN 0-9710984-1-7.
- ^ Tompkins, Walker A. (1975). Santa Barbara, Past and Present. Santa Barbara, California: Tecolote Books. p. 80.
- ^ DOGGR, p. 681
- ^ Tompkins, Walker A. (1975). Santa Barbara, Past and Present. Santa Barbara, California: Tecolote Books. p. 80.
- ^ a b DOGGR, p. 679