Joaquin

Southern California Gas postponed the second phase of work scheduled in the San Joaquin Valley on Line 225. That ended Wednesday afternoon a large reduction in capacity at the Wheeler Ridge delivery point into SoCalGas due to this maintenance, which had previously been scheduled to run through Friday (see Daily GPI, March 1). The second phase of the project has not yet been rescheduled, a SoCalGas spokeswoman said.

Oil and natural gas-rich Kern County in the southern end of California’s San Joaquin Valley went to court last week to uphold Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s past and future property tax bills on the former U.S. Naval Petroleum Reserve at nearby Elk Hills. At stake is up to $73 million of past taxes that Oxy argues should be refunded, along with future tax bills of $7.5 million annually.

Oil and natural gas-rich Kern County in the southern end of California’s San Joaquin Valley went to court last week to uphold Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s past and future property tax bills on the former U.S. Naval Petroleum Reserve at nearby Elk Hills

Backers of the Elk Hills Power Plant in the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley’s oil patch held groundbreaking ceremonies Monday –on a 570-MW gas-fired plant in the midst of plentiful local gas supplies. The plant’s sponsors are Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), which owns the nearby Elk Hills oil/gas production fields once a part of the U.S. Navy’s Strategic Reserves, and Sempra Energy. The new plant will get all of its fuel supplies — up to 94 MMcf/d — from nearby Elk Hills, delivered through an Oxy pipeline, eliminating the normal utility transportation charges.

Sonat said Monday it had completed temporary repairs to its Logansport, LA facilities. Gas flow was resumed for 59 upstream receipt points in the Logansport and Joaquin Fields that had been shut in by the work Saturday (see Daily GPI, April 23). Further evaluation is being done to develop a permanent repair plan, Sonat said.

Deep drilling in the southwest end of California’s central SanJoaquin Valley is awaiting more testing work to prove that backers’claims of substantial new oil and gas supplies below 15,000-footdepths are, in fact, commercially available.

After several weeks of field testing, sponsors of a high-profile,deep-drilling project in the southern end of California’s San JoaquinValley reported Thursday (June 22) “pure, sweet oil” with an APIgravity of 48.6 degrees and associated natural gas with a very highnet Btu content of 1,460 with no water. However, definitiveinformation on the projected volumes is still several weeks away,according to Tri-Valley Oil & Gas Co., operator of the ProjectEkho No. 1 well about 45 miles northwest of Bakersfield, CA.

A deep-drilling exploration project in the southwest end of theoil/gas saturated San Joaquin Valley about 45 miles northwest ofBakersfield is moving into the production testing phase with itssponsors, Tri-Valley Oil and Gas, liking what they have seen inpreliminary analyses of the 19,100-foot-deep Project Ekho#1 testwell.

A $9.5 million deep-drilling project in California’s oil-gassaturated south San Joaquin Valley, dubbed Project Ekho, began itsfirst test drilling Monday at a site 40 miles northwest ofBakersfield, shooting for a depth of 19,500 feet where itsindependent backers calculate there could be the beginning of somesubstantial new oil and gas supplies, according toBakersfield-based Tri-Valley Oil & Gas Co., operator of theproject, which has numerous Canadian backers.