These might not be the boom days of the early 1900s in southern California when clusters of wooden derrick masts crowded the landscape in Kern County in the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the crest of Signal Hill in the Long Beach area. But by the same token, these aren't the bleak days of the 1980s when the region's heavy-oil output was selling for $6.50 per barrel and area operators were teetering on, or had already declared, bankruptcy. Today, with daily oil demand in the Golden State having soared to an estimated 2.3 million barrels-mainly for transportation-and heavy-oil prices in the range of $50 to $60, California's independent producers are pulling out all the technological stops to tap the region's huge remaining oil-in-place potential that only a decade ago would have been grossly uneconomic to pursue. According to one seasoned Kern County hole-puncher, the southern tip of the San Joaquin Valley-even after 100 years of drilling-remains two-thirds unexplored. Sediments at the bottom of the valley are as deep as 45,000 feet, he notes, yet almost all the exploration there within the past century has occurred at above 12,000 feet. This includes 110,000 wells drilled in the just the Bakersfield area alone. For more on this, see the September issue of Oil and Gas Investor. For a subscription, call 713-260-6441.

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