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Responding to Gov. Jerry Brown’s mandate amid heightened safety concerns about the nearly three-month-old Aliso Canyon well leak, California regulators on Friday served notice of issuing emergency natural gas storage regulations.

Attorneys have cited the absence of a safety valve in lawsuits on behalf of residents that have been dislocated by a two-month-old natural gas storage well leak in the northwest end of the Los Angeles San Fernando Valley (see Daily GPI,Nov. 19).

In the first 18 months under California’s well stimulation rules, nearly 95% of permits granted were for hydraulic fracturing (fracking), according to a report oil/natural gas regulators submitted to the state legislature on the last day of 2015.

California’s oil/natural gas supervisor late Wednesday issued an emergency order aimed at getting data on a month-long underground storage well leak from Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas), the owner/operator of the state’s largest gas storage facility in northern Los Angeles County. The order sought initial information by the end of the day Thursday.

Following through on new regulations designed to bring the state into compliance with federal Safe Drinking Water Act standards, California oil and natural gas regulators on Thursday permanently closed 33 underground injection wells.

Acknowledging insufficient oversight of the oil and natural gas industry in the past, California energy officials on Thursday released a “renewal plan” for regulatory efforts along with a state legislative-mandated report (SB 855) detailing shortcomings of past efforts, which are concentrated in the Department of Conservation (DOC).

As part of its move to get tougher with day-to-day oversight of oil and natural gas operators, California’s chief oilfield regulator levied a $257,800 fine against Bakersfield-based Bennett Petroleum Inc. for admitted falsified reports to the state and other violations.

California regulators on Thursday issued civil penalties of $4,500 each to 30 oil/gas operators that failed to report water use data required under a state law (SB 1281) passed last year. More fines are expected.

Oil and natural gas operators in California face stepped up oversight in the months ahead as the Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) undergoes an extensive reorganization, the head of DOGGR told NGI’s Shale Daily on Tuesday.