Occidental Petroleum Corp. made a “significant” discovery of oil and gas reserves in Kern County, CA, the company said Wednesday. Approximately two-thirds of the discovery is believed to be natural gas.

Occidental believes there are 150-250 million gross boe reserves within the outlined area where it has so far drilled six wells to delineate the discovery. The multi-pay zone discovery area, whose areal geological extent is still being defined, has both conventional and unconventional pay zones. The bulk of the discovery’s producing zones are conventional oil- and gas-bearing formations, Occidental said. The company’s interest in the discovery area is approximately 80%.

“We believe this to be the largest new oil and gas discovery made in California in more than 35 years,” said CEO Ray R. Irani. “It is probable that there are additional reserves outside the defined area, and it is possible that structures of this type exist elsewhere in Oxy’s 1.1 million-net acre position in California. We plan to drill wells to exploit these opportunities over the next five to 10 years.”

In April Irani said Occidental during 1Q2009 achieved nearly 8% growth in year-over-year oil and gas production.

Earlier this month analysts at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities Inc. said they expect Oxy to grow production on average of about 6% both in 2009 and 2010 (see Daily GPI, July 16).

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