BAKKEN BREAKOUT • November 2011


the Civil War. State production began in the northern Central Valley, southeast of San Francisco. But within a few decades, exploration shifted south to the Los Angeles area, then off-shore.


Native people and the Spanish settlers who followed were well aware of southern California’s hydrocarbon resources. Thick tar seeps littered the greater Los Angeles landscape — oil slicks were common in the Santa Barbara Channel. Indigenous people used the viscous tar to waterproof canoes; settlers found it worked well as an undercoating for roof tiles.


Commercial drilling in the Los Angeles basin began in the 1880s and became the impetus for the city’s future growth. Los Angeles literally grew up


around oil fields, which are still major producers in many parts of the city including chic Beverly Hills. Throughout the 20th Century, drillers were so successful in discovering fields in southern California that the state was actually the world’s largest crude oil producer in the 1920s and 1930s. The Los Angeles harbor was developed principally to export oil to foreign countries.


Unlike North Dakota’s oil and gas producing units, California’s are generally very shallow and very young, geologically speaking. Some oil-producing units are as shallow as a few hundred feet, which made early drilling successful and inexpensive. The depth to oil rarely exceeds 7,000 feet compared to North Dakota where well depth commonly exceeds 10,000 feet. And,


while North Dakota oil developed hundreds of millions of years ago (predating the dinosaurs), California’s developed steadily over the past 50 million years or so (accompanying the rise of mammals).


California production peaked in 1985 at an average of nearly 1.1 million BOPD — about twice 2010 production. Officials estimate the state’s recoverable crude oil reserves to be 3-6 billion barrels and expect production to steadily decline at least for the foreseeable future. Californians consume about three barrels of crude for every one the state produces.


California’s most promising future reserves lay off-shore from Long Beach to northwest of Santa Barbara. But, long-


Page 13


Top Four Crude Oil Production 1981-2010 (barrels of oil per day)


Year North Dakota California Texas Alaska 1981 124 1982 130 1983 139 1984 144 1985 139 1986 125 1987 113 1988 107 1989 101 1990 101 1991 98 1992 90 1993 85 1994 76 1995 80 1996 88 1997 98 1998 97 1999 90 2000 89 2001 87 2002 85 2003 81 2004 85 2005 98 2006 109 2007 123 2008 172 2009 218 2010 310


1,001 1,022 1,025 1,043 1,079 1,036 999 969 907 879 875 835 803 784 764 772 781 777 748 741 714 707 685 656 631 612 594 586 567 552


2,554 1,609 2,488 1,696 2,419 1,714 2,413 1,722 2,381 1,825 2,245 1,867 2,085 1,962 2,010 2,017 1,885 1,874 1,859 1,773 1,870 1,798 1,778 1,714 1,696 1,582 1,618 1,559 1,533 1,484 1,485 1,393 1,470 1,296 1,383 1,175 1,231 1,050 1,211 970 1,162 963 1,129 984 1,112 974 1,073 908 1,062 864 1,088 741 1,087 722 1,087 683 1,106 645 1,189 599


Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration


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(701) 222-0076 Bismarck, North Dakota


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