California Bans High-Pressure Steam Oil Wells

[thackney]

California Bans High-Pressure Steam Oil Wells
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/california_bans_highpressure_steam_oil_wells-19-nov-2019-160380-article/
November 19, 2019

...In his latest salvo against the petroleum industry, Governor Gavin Newsom ordered regulators to assess the safety of high-pressure steamflooding, according to a Department of Conservation statement on Tuesday. Hydraulic fracturing and other oil-production methods also will be examined.

“This marks the turning of the tide against the oil industry” in California, said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity.

California Resources Corp., the state’s largest oil producer, tumbled as much as 32% and its bonds dropped to just 25 cents on the dollar, the lowest since 2016. The company predicted no “significant effect” on its output because the type of steamflooding it employs is exempt from the ban, according to an email.

Berry Petroleum Corp., a driller based in the heart of California’s de facto oil capital, Bakersfield, slumped as much as 25%. Newsom, a San Francisco Democrat in his first term as governor, has been stepping up pressure on oil and natural gas producers through a series of initiatives such as denying permits and drilling leases on lands that is or once was protected by federal authorities.

Phase Out

“These are necessary steps to strengthen oversight of oil and gas extraction as we phase out our dependence on fossil fuels and focus on clean energy sources,” Newsom said. “This transition cannot happen overnight; it must advance in a deliberate way to protect people, our environment, and our economy.”

California is the sixth-biggest oil-producing state in the nation, ahead of former powerhouses like Alaska. Although in-state output has plunged by 60% since the mid-1980s, explorers rely on so-called enhanced recovery techniques like steamflooding to keep fields first drilled in the 1800s in active production.

The state fined Chevron $2.7 million last month after several “surface expressions” of water and oil were found at the Cymric field near Bakersfield. The Department of Conservation attributed the leaks to steamflooding and said they created a “significant threat of harm to human health and the environment.”...

[thackney]

Millions of Gallons Of Oily Water Have Surfaced In A Kern County Oil Field, And More Keeps Coming
https://www.kvpr.org/post/millions-gallons-oily-water-have-surfaced-kern-county-oil-field-and-more-keeps-coming
NOV 15, 2019



...The colleague was calling to tell Flores about a Kern County oil seep, which the state refers to as a surface expression. Dubbed the “1Y” expression, a dry streambed had begun filling with crude oil and water in the Cymric Oil Field west of Bakersfield. “What he told me next was, ‘and it has probably been going for months and we didn't know,’” Flores says.

Indeed, the 1Y seep, occurring just a few miles away from the unincorporated community of McKittrick, had first been reported to the state in May. Outside of a few overlooked social media posts, the state had not informed the public. A July 12 report by KQED broke the story.

That single surface expression, which released more than 1.3 million gallons of oily water before it was sealed, prompted fines and violations against the operator, a site visit from Governor Gavin Newsom, and investigations into state regulators, but spill reports reveal the amount of fluid released at 1Y represents only half of what’s seeped to the surface just this year, just in the Cymric Oil Field. Since July, at least a half dozen surface expressions have been reported into the state spill report database, including one in early November, totaling more than 2.7 million gallons of oil, water and mud. It’s enough to fill four Olympic-sized swimming pools. The total doesn’t include any fluid released prior to 2019, including much of the estimated 82 million gallons that’s flowed intermittently since 2003 at another Cymric surface expression....

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I wonder when Newsom will begin fining the County of Los Angeles for the seeps occuring at the La Brea Tar Pits?

These have a lot more impact to people than do the ones in the barren hills of Cymric.

[bigheadfred]

I wonder when Newsom will begin fining the County of Los Angeles for the seeps occuring at the La Brea Tar Pits?

These have a lot more impact to people than do the ones in the barren hills of Cymric.

I had a similar thought earlier. Like a cease and desist order or eviction notice.