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Ellwood Oil Field
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Ellwood Oil Field
Ellwood Oil Field (also spelled "Elwood") and South Ellwood Offshore Oil Field are a pair of adjacent, partially active oil fields adjoining the city of Goleta, California, about twelve miles (19 km) west of Santa Barbara, largely in the Santa Barbara Channel. A richly productive field in the 1930s, the Ellwood Oil Field was important to the economic development of the Santa Barbara area. A Japanese submarine shelled the area during World War II. It was the first direct naval bombardment of the continental U.S. since the Civil War, causing an invasion scare on the West Coast.
The Ellwood Oil Field is located approximately 12 miles (19 km) west of the city of Santa Barbara, beginning at the western boundary of the city of Goleta, proceeding west into the Pacific and then back onshore near Dos Pueblos Ranch. The onshore portions of the field include beach, coastal bluffs, blufftop grasslands, and eucalyptus groves. Some of the former oil field is now part of the Ellwood-Devereux Open Space, maintained by the city of Goleta, and the Bacara Resort, Sandpiper Golf Course, and Goleta housing developments sit on areas formerly occupied by pump-jacks, derricks, and oil storage tanks.
The climate is Mediterranean, with an equable temperature regime year-round, and most of the precipitation falling between October and April in the form of rain. Freezes are rare. Runoff is towards the ocean, and to a few vernal pools on the bluffs. The offshore portions of the Ellwood oil field are in relatively shallow water, and were drilled from piers.
The South Ellwood Offshore field is entirely beneath the Pacific Ocean, about two miles (3.2 km) from the main onshore oil field. It is entirely within the State Tidelands zone, which encompasses areas within three nautical miles (5.6 km) of shore. These regions are subject to state, rather than Federal regulation. The last production from this field was from Platform Holly, which is in 211 feet (64 m) of water, about two miles (3.2 km) from the coast at Coal Oil Point and has been shut down. Numerous directionally-drilled oil wells originate at the platform, and several pipelines connect the platform to an onshore oil processing facility adjacent to the Sandpiper Golf Course.
The Ellwood Oil Field is roughly five miles (8.0 km) long and up to a mile wide, with both its eastern and western extremity onshore. It is an anticlinal structure, with oil trapped stratigraphically by the anticline. The More Ranch Fault provides an impermeable barrier on the northeast. Oil occurs in several pools, with the largest being in the Vaqueros Sandstone, approximately 3,400 feet (1,000 m) below ground surface. Other significant pools occur in the Rincon Formation at a depth of 2,600 feet (790 m), and in the Upper Sespe Formation at 3,700 feet (1,100 m) below ground surface.
The Ellwood Oil Field contained approximately 106 million barrels (16,900,000 m3) of oil, almost all of which has been removed, to the degree possible with the technology available until the early 1970s. The field now has been abandoned. The South Ellwood Offshore field has been estimated by the US Department of Energy to hold over one billion barrels of oil and approximately 2.1 billion barrels (330,000,000 m3), most of which is in the undeveloped portion of the field. In 1995, the Oil and Gas Journal reported 155 million barrels (24,600,000 m3) of proven reserves.
Oil from the Ellwood field was generally light and sweet, with an API gravity averaging 38 and low sulfur content (making it "sweet" in petroleum parlance). Oil from the offshore field is medium-grade, ranging from API gravity 25 to 34, and has a higher sulfur content, requiring more processing than the oil from the decommissioned onshore field.
Several pools have been identified in the South Ellwood Offshore field, in three major vertical zones. The upper Monterey Formation contains a large pool in a zone of fractured shale at an average depth of 3,350 feet (1,020 m) below the ocean floor. Beneath that, a separate pool exists in the Rincon Sand, 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below the ocean floor, and yet another in the Vaqueros Formation at a depth of 5,900 feet (1,800 m). The deepest well drilled to date is 6,490 feet (1,980 m) into the Rincon Formation.
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Ellwood Oil Field
Ellwood Oil Field (also spelled "Elwood") and South Ellwood Offshore Oil Field are a pair of adjacent, partially active oil fields adjoining the city of Goleta, California, about twelve miles (19 km) west of Santa Barbara, largely in the Santa Barbara Channel. A richly productive field in the 1930s, the Ellwood Oil Field was important to the economic development of the Santa Barbara area. A Japanese submarine shelled the area during World War II. It was the first direct naval bombardment of the continental U.S. since the Civil War, causing an invasion scare on the West Coast.
The Ellwood Oil Field is located approximately 12 miles (19 km) west of the city of Santa Barbara, beginning at the western boundary of the city of Goleta, proceeding west into the Pacific and then back onshore near Dos Pueblos Ranch. The onshore portions of the field include beach, coastal bluffs, blufftop grasslands, and eucalyptus groves. Some of the former oil field is now part of the Ellwood-Devereux Open Space, maintained by the city of Goleta, and the Bacara Resort, Sandpiper Golf Course, and Goleta housing developments sit on areas formerly occupied by pump-jacks, derricks, and oil storage tanks.
The climate is Mediterranean, with an equable temperature regime year-round, and most of the precipitation falling between October and April in the form of rain. Freezes are rare. Runoff is towards the ocean, and to a few vernal pools on the bluffs. The offshore portions of the Ellwood oil field are in relatively shallow water, and were drilled from piers.
The South Ellwood Offshore field is entirely beneath the Pacific Ocean, about two miles (3.2 km) from the main onshore oil field. It is entirely within the State Tidelands zone, which encompasses areas within three nautical miles (5.6 km) of shore. These regions are subject to state, rather than Federal regulation. The last production from this field was from Platform Holly, which is in 211 feet (64 m) of water, about two miles (3.2 km) from the coast at Coal Oil Point and has been shut down. Numerous directionally-drilled oil wells originate at the platform, and several pipelines connect the platform to an onshore oil processing facility adjacent to the Sandpiper Golf Course.
The Ellwood Oil Field is roughly five miles (8.0 km) long and up to a mile wide, with both its eastern and western extremity onshore. It is an anticlinal structure, with oil trapped stratigraphically by the anticline. The More Ranch Fault provides an impermeable barrier on the northeast. Oil occurs in several pools, with the largest being in the Vaqueros Sandstone, approximately 3,400 feet (1,000 m) below ground surface. Other significant pools occur in the Rincon Formation at a depth of 2,600 feet (790 m), and in the Upper Sespe Formation at 3,700 feet (1,100 m) below ground surface.
The Ellwood Oil Field contained approximately 106 million barrels (16,900,000 m3) of oil, almost all of which has been removed, to the degree possible with the technology available until the early 1970s. The field now has been abandoned. The South Ellwood Offshore field has been estimated by the US Department of Energy to hold over one billion barrels of oil and approximately 2.1 billion barrels (330,000,000 m3), most of which is in the undeveloped portion of the field. In 1995, the Oil and Gas Journal reported 155 million barrels (24,600,000 m3) of proven reserves.
Oil from the Ellwood field was generally light and sweet, with an API gravity averaging 38 and low sulfur content (making it "sweet" in petroleum parlance). Oil from the offshore field is medium-grade, ranging from API gravity 25 to 34, and has a higher sulfur content, requiring more processing than the oil from the decommissioned onshore field.
Several pools have been identified in the South Ellwood Offshore field, in three major vertical zones. The upper Monterey Formation contains a large pool in a zone of fractured shale at an average depth of 3,350 feet (1,020 m) below the ocean floor. Beneath that, a separate pool exists in the Rincon Sand, 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below the ocean floor, and yet another in the Vaqueros Formation at a depth of 5,900 feet (1,800 m). The deepest well drilled to date is 6,490 feet (1,980 m) into the Rincon Formation.
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