Wilmington Oil Field

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The Wilmington Oil Field is a prolific

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

field in

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...

in southern

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Discovered in 1932, it is the third largest oil field in the United States in terms of cumulative oil production. The field runs roughly southeast to northwest through the

Los Angeles Basin The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an anomalous group of east-west trending chains of mountains collectively known as the Tr ...

, stretching from the middle of San Pedro Bay through

Long Beach Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

and east of the

Palos Verdes Peninsula The Palos Verdes Peninsula (''Palos Verdes'', Spanish for "Green Sticks") is a landform and a geographic sub-region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, within southwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. Located in the Sou ...

. The field originally contained approximately of reserves. In 2013, the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

estimated future potential production from the combined Wilmington-Belmont oilfield could be around . The offshore portion of the oil field is developed largely through wells drilled directionally from

THUMS Islands The THUMS Islands are a set of four artificial islands in San Pedro Bay off the coast of Long Beach, California. The THUMS Islands were built in 1965 to tap into the East Wilmington Oil Field. The landscaping and sound walls were designed to cam ...

, four artificial islands in

Long Beach Harbor The Port of Long Beach, also known as the Harbor Department of the City of Long Beach, is a container port in the United States, which adjoins Port of Los Angeles. Acting as a major gateway for US–Asian trade, the port occupies of land with ...

Operations

California Resources Corporation California Resources Corporation is a company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration in California. It is organized in Delaware and headquartered in Los Angeles. It has the largest privately held mineral acreage position in California. The company ...

currently operates the Wilmington Oil Field in partnership with the

State of California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and the

City of Long Beach Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the list of United States cities by population, 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the List of citie ...

. CRC's Long Beach operations include:California Resources Corporation 2017 Annual Report
Pages 16-25. *'' THUMS Long Beach Company'', which operates the offshore portion of the Wilmington Oil Field *''Tidelands Oil Production Company'', which operates the onshore portion of the Wilmington Oil Field *two additional smaller leases in the

area

Data

Estimations as of 2013 (based on reserve estimates in 2008 and extraction from succeeding years, estimated through July). * cumulative production: * estimated reserves: * annual production: * producing wells: 1,428 (in 2008) * estimated year of depletion (based on current rates and reserve estimates): 2031 A 2013

report estimates that the Wilmington-Belmont oilfield had Original oil-in-place of between of oil, of which an additional could be produced, with their best estimate of future production potential.

Geology

The field was discovered with the Ranger Petroleum Corp.'s Watson No. 2 well in 1932, which flowed at 150 bbl per day, and the broad

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...

structure itself was discovered in 1936 by the General Petroleum Corp.'s Terminal No. 1 well based on a

Reflection seismology Reflection seismology (or seismic reflection) is a method of exploration geophysics that uses the principles of seismology to estimate the properties of the Earth's subsurface from reflected seismic waves. The method requires a controlled seismi ...

survey.Mayuga, M.N., Geology and Development of California's Giant-Wilmington Oil Field, in Geology of Giant Petroleum Fields, Tulsa: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Memoir 14, p. 159. An offshore seismic survey in 1954 showed the field extended some miles to the southeast. The anticline plunges to the northwest and is separated from the Torrance Oil Field by a saddle, and is similarly separated from the

Huntington Beach Oil Field The Huntington Beach Oil Field is part of rich pools of oil found along the West Coast of the United States in the early 1920s stretching from Huntington Beach, California to Santa Barbara, California. History On May 24, 1920, the first Huntingt ...

to the southeast. A series of

transform faults A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another transform, a spreading ridge, or a subductio ...

divides the field into separate blocks which form barriers to fluid movement and pressure changes. Basement consists of the

Catalina Schist The Catalina Schist is a metamorphic rock complex primarily exposed on Santa Catalina Island of the Channel Islands of California. It formed during the Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Era. Geology The Catalina Schist is broadly correlated wit ...

and is overlain with up to 8,000 feet of

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

and

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58sandstones Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) b ...

. An

unconformity An unconformity is a buried erosional or non-depositional surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval o ...

in the Pliocene between the

Repetto Repetto is a French ballet shoe company. It was founded in 1947 by Rose Repetto, after her son, choreographer Roland Petit, would come home from classes complaining of sore feet. Repetto provides ballet shoes for the Opéra National de Paris and ...

and the

Pico Pico may refer to: Places The Moon * Mons Pico, a lunar mountain in the northern part of the Mare Imbrium basin Portugal * Pico, a civil parish in the municipality of Vila Verde * Pico da Pedra, a civil parish in the municipality of Ribeir ...

indicates the top of the structure was eroded to a flat surface and later Pliocene and

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

sediments were deposited horizontally.Mayuga, M.N., p. 166.

Subsidence

Withdrawal of large volumes of oil from the poorly consolidated sediments resulted in compaction of the oil reservoirs, and resultant sinking of the overlying land surface. Subsidence became apparent in 1940, and exceeded 20 feet at the center. Water injection to maintain pressure in the oil reservoirs began in 1953, which eventually stopped further subsidence.

References

External links

Los Angeles Almanac: Great Oil Fields
{{coord, 33.7710, -118.2247, type:landmark_source:enwiki-googlemaplink, display=title Oil fields in California Geology of Los Angeles County, California Geography of Los Angeles Geography of Long Beach, California Geography of Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles Harbor Region Terminal Island Wilmington, Los Angeles Economy of Los Angeles Economy of Long Beach, California