Ellwood oil field
The Ellwood Oil Field (also spelled "Elwood") and the South Ellwood Offshore Oil Field are a pair of adjacent, partially active oil fields that border the city of Goleta , California . They are located approximately 12 miles west of Santa Barbara, mostly in the Santa Barbara Channel . As a highly productive field in the 1930s, it was important to the Santa Barbara area's economic development. It was shelled by a Japanese submarine during World War II, marking the first direct attack on the mainland of the United States since the War of 1812. Above all, this sparked fear of the invasion of the west coast of the United States and the internment of Americans of Japanese descent .
background
The Ellwood oil field is located approximately 12 miles west of the city of Santa Barbara. It starts on the city's western border, then continues west into the Pacific and then back towards the coast near Dos Pueblos Ranch . The coastal parts of the field include areas of the beach, the coastal cliffs of the grasslands at the top of the cliffs and eucalyptus - groves . Some areas of the former oil field are now part of the "Ellwood-Devereux Open Space", which is maintained by the city of Goleta, the Bacara Resort and the Sandpiper Golf Course. New houses and apartments are now being built in this area where there used to be deep pumps , derricks and oil tanks .
There is a Mediterranean climate on site , with a constant temperature throughout the year. Most of the precipitation falls between October and April in the form of rain. Frost is rare. The overland runoff goes towards the ocean and through temporary processes (so-called vernal pools ) over the cliffs. The offshore parts of the oil field are in relatively shallow waters and were drilled from the pier .
The South Ellwood Offshore Oil Field is completely under the Pacific Ocean and about three kilometers from the main oil field offshore . It is also holistically located in the region's Wadden Sea, which encompasses an area of around six kilometers around the coast. This region is under more state than government control. At the moment only the Holly Platform is still producing oil, which is about 64 m underwater and about three kilometers from the coast. Various, directly drilled oil wells are located at the platform and several pipelines connect it to a processing plant on the coast, which is adjacent to the Sandpiper Golf Course.
geology
The Ellwood oil field is approximately five miles long and one mile wide and its endpoints (east and west) are both on the coast. It has an anticline structure, with the oil stratigraphically found above the anticlines. The More Ranch fault line in the northeast represents an impermeable barrier. Oil is found in several basins, the largest of which is in the Vaqueros Formation , about 1,000 m above sea level. Other large basins are in the Rincon Formation at an altitude of 790 m and in the Upper Sespe Formation , 1,100 m above sea level.
The field contained approximately 106 million barrels of oil, most of which had already been eroded as far as the technology of the early 1970s allowed. The oil field has now been abandoned. At the South Ellwood Offshore Oil Field, however, the existing amount of oil is estimated to be over a billion barrels. Venoco estimates the amount at 2.1 billion barrels, with most of it in the undeveloped part of the field. In 1995 the Oil and Gas Journal reported that there were at least about 155 million barrels of reserves there.
Conventional ( light crude oil ) and low-sulfur ( sweet crude oil ) oils were mainly found in the Ellwood field . The API grade was around 38, with a low sulfur content (which makes the oil “sweet” in technical jargon). Oil from the offshore field is of medium quality, with an API level of 25 to 34 and a higher sulfur content, which is why it has to be processed more heavily than the oil extracted from the abandoned oil field on the coast.
Several reservoirs have been discovered in the South Ellwood Offshore Field, in three vertical zones. The Upper Monterey Formation contains a large basin in an area of brittle schist about 1,000 meters below sea level. Below this is a separate reservoir in the Rincon sandstone, about 1,500 m below sea level, and in the Vaqueros Formation, at a depth of about 1,800 m. The deepest hole to date has been drilled in the Rincon Formation at 1,980 m. Information on the age and type of rock is still treated confidentially at Venoco, the current operator.
History and production
Ellwood oil field
The oil field is named after Ellwood Cooper (1829-1918), who owned the large Ellwood Ranch, on the grounds of which Goleta and the adjacent hills can now be found. His first name can be found in many local places and places, such as the oil field, Ellwood Canyon, Ellwood School, Ellwood Station Road and the neighborhood in Goleta called "Ellwood".
The first oil in the area was discovered in July 1928 by the Barnsdall Oil Co. of California and the Rio Grande Company, which had their Luton-Bell Well No. 1 drilled into the Vaqueros sandstone at a depth of 978 m. They were on the verge of giving up when they not only stumbled upon oil, but directly discovered a bubbling spring, initially producing 1,316 barrels per day. The find ushered in a period of oil leasing and experimental wildcat well drilling off the south coast of Santa Barbara, from Carpinteria to Gaviota. During this time, the Mesa Oil Field was also discovered, which is within the city limits of Santa Barbara and approximately 20 km east of the Ellwood Field.
Shelling in World War II
A momentous visit from a stranger occurred in the late 1930s. Kozo Nishino, the skipper of a Japanese oil tanker, visited the field to load oil. While he was heading to the coast for a formal welcome ceremony with his team, he stumbled and fell on an opuntia (which is now below the 11th fairway of the Sandpiper Golf Course). The sight of the proud Japanese captain having cactus thorns pulled out of his buttocks caused laughter from a group of nearby oil workers.
Kozo returned a few years later. During the Second World War, now as a frigate captain of the Japanese submarine I-17 , he appeared with his ship directly at Coal Oil Point on February 23, 1942 and ordered his crew to prepare the 140 mm deck gun. They fired 16 to 25 times at a large pair of oil storage tanks, which were right next to where it fell into the cactus. His shooters were anything but accurate and most of the shots hit either miles inland or flew into the water. One of the explosions damaged the Luton-Bell 17 well, on the beach below the 14th fairway of the local golf course, and caused approximately $ 500 damage to a jetty and pumping equipment. Kozo then contacted Tokyo and reported he was "setting Santa Barbara on fire." The incident marked the first direct enemy attack on the American mainland since the 1812 War.
While the Ellwood Oil Field peaked in oil production in 1930, oil continued to be produced well into the 1960s. The part on the coast was abandoned in 1972.
Today, the oil equipment damaged by the Japanese is owned by Santa Barbara County. A historical marker was erected on a rock on the golf course grounds, briefly telling the story of the incident.
The South Ellwood Offshore Oil Field
The existence of an offshore field has long been suspected, mainly because of the constant natural seepage of oil from the seabed. The area around Coal Oil Point is now one of the most studied seepage zones in the world. In 1966, ARCO built the Holly platform at a depth of 64 m and about three kilometers from the Coal Oil Point. They began drilling wells in different areas of the field. Crown production was 1984. The Holly mobile platform continued to produce oil until 1997, when Venoco Inc. acquired all rights to the field. The platform is currently connected to a processing plant on the mainland via three pipelines - one for oil, one for gas and one for operating materials. In addition, a pipeline transports oil from "tents" ( "tents" ) which have been built on the natural seepage, along the sea bed to the reprocessing plant.
Besides Holly, large parts of the oil field are still undiscovered and undeveloped. Mobil 's attempt to drill from the coast in 1995 (as part of the "Clearview" project, also called "Drillview" by competitors) was rejected and a plan to drill more distant parts of the field has been underway 2009 in conversation. Venoco's current plan is to drill 40 new direct holes from the existing platform to develop new wells. This could triple production.
credentials
- ↑ Several prominent public sources, including the California Department of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, use the spelling "Elwood" in their database and publications. The fields are named after the 19th century rancher and olive farmer Ellwood Cooper. Many other names of public places and places use the "Ellwood" spelling
- ↑ County of Santa Barbara Energy Division page on Venoco operations ( Memento of the original from July 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ Description of Venoco Operations, issued by the US Department of Energy .
- ↑ Venoco press release regarding the Süd-Ellwood-Project ( Memento of the original from July 15, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ "mobile rebuffed in extended reach drriling project" , Oil and Gas Journal , July 3, 1995th
- ↑ a b c Walker A. Tompkins. (1983). Santa Barbara History Makers. Santa Barbara: McNally & Loftin. Pages 161-165, 304-306.
- ↑ JR Schmitt, JE Dugan, MR Adamson. "Industrial Activity and its Socioeconomic Impacts: Oil and Three Coastal California Counties." MMS OCS Study 2002-049. Coastal Research Center, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California. MMS Cooperative Agreement Number: 14-35-01-00-CA-31603. Page 54.
- ^ The Shelling of Ellwood , California State Military Museum.
- ↑ John McKinney. California'S Coastal Parks. Wilderness Press, 2005. page 101. ISBN 0-89997-388-4 .
- ↑ County of Santa Barbara Energy Division ( Memento of the original from July 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ Margaret Connell (July 22, 2008). "Platform Holly wants More Oil" . The Santa Barbara Independent .
