Long Beach To Open The Spigot...

Trivia time: Where is the third-largest oil field in the lower 48 United States?

Answer: Long Beach. Actually, the Wilmington field stretches from San Pedro to Seal Beach, but Long Beach is ground zero for plans to revive the aging field where production has waned due to the perceived high cost of squeezing out the remaining crude.

Now that oil prices are in triple digits, though, it makes more sense to go back into the field and thanks to a bill pushed by Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, that appears likely to happen. Negotiations are underway with Occidental to jump start production.

Using directional drilling and 3-D imaging, extracting oil is much more viable than it has been in the past and estimates are that output could increase by 63%, creating about $1 billion in revenue for the City and the Port of Long Beach.

Of course there is the usual environmental opposition, as well as some allegations of a legislative sleight of hand to get the authoring bill passed, but urban drill sites are nothing new in Southern California and heaven knows we need the oil.

More as this develops...

Long Beach aims to boost output from Wilmington oil field [Los Angeles Times]