HISTORICAL PRODUCTION AND INJECTION VOLUMES FOR OIL FIELDS IN LOS ANGELES AND ORANGE COUNTIES, CALIFORNIA

Oil and gas production has occurred in the broader Los Angeles area since 1876, first as conventional production, then involving enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques beginning in the 1950s. One measure of the intensity and type of oilfield activity are oil field injection and production records, which consist of the volume of oil, water, or gas production, and volumes of water and steam injection used in EOR or water disposal. In California, production and injection volumes are readily available from 1977 onward as they exist in an online digital database. Records before that, extending to 1920, only exist as data tables in the published Summary of Operations for California Oil Fields. These typically have been digitized only in an ad hoc manner for studies of individual oil fields making a systematic understanding of oil production in the area difficult.

Here, we present a summary of newly transcribed data from the Summary of Operations for all Los Angeles and Orange County oil fields between 1920 and 1976. These data consist of volume and type of oil, water, and gas production and injection reported on a quarterly, semiannually, or annual basis. Early data is reported by oil field, and after 1957, broken down into area within the field and pool (formation).

Fluid (oil and water) production in this area in the 1920s and 1930s was dominated by the Long Beach and Santa Fe Springs Oil Fields. With the introduction of waterflood and steam flood as enhanced recovery practices in the 1950s and 1960s, the Huntington Beach and Wilmington Oil Fields became the largest fluid producers in the area. In several oil fields, annual fluid injection was greater than fluid production. In the Wilmington Oil Field, total fluid injection became greater than total production in 1959, partly in an effort to inhibit land subsidence. Huntington Beach Oil Field fluid injection began in 1957, with total injection surpassing total production in 1965. Injection in the Santa Fe Springs Oil Field remained low until 1972, when waterflood projects commenced, with total injected volume surpassing total produced volumes in 1974.