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Title: Pacific summary report. Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas activities in the Pacific and their onshore impacts

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6251069

The Pacific Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is an established hydrocarbon-producing region. Oil and gas have been produced from the Santa Barbara Channel since 1896. About 75,300 barrels of oil are produced from the California Federal OCS each day as of March 1982, and leases on State tidelands produce about 40,000 barrels of oil per day. This highly developed area is, of course, but a small part of the Pacific OCS, which also includes Central and Northern California, Washington, and Oregon. The petroleum industry has shown an interest in exploring frontier areas off the California coast. Some frontier acreage was awarded in recent lease sales, and exploration, development, and production will be moving out into deeper water. The technology is currently being developed and tested to allow deepwater exploration. Offshore drilling operations have resulted in the delineation of 13 offshore oil and gas fields. Three new discoveries were also announced in the last year for the Pacific Region. Reserve estimates have been made for the 13 fields in the region. Remaining recoverable reserves are estimated at 861 million barrels of oil and over 1.7 trillion cubic feet of gas as of December 31, 1981. Estimates of undiscovered recoverable resources in the offshore Santa Maria Basin and Southern California OCS are about 3.1 billion barrels of oil and in excess of 4.5 trillion cubic feet of gas. To date, there have been nine oil and gas lease sales in the Pacific OCS Region. According to the July 1982 final 5-year OCS oil and gas leasing schedule, four more are planned through 1986. Pipelines continue to be the preferred mode of transporting Pacific OCS hydrocarbons to shore. The onshore petroleum processing facilities in the Pacific Region service onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration, development, and production, as well as the international oil market. 16 figures, 21 tables.

Research Organization:
Rogers, Golden and Halpern, Inc., Reston, VA (USA)
OSTI ID:
6251069
Report Number(s):
NP-3901730; ON: DE83901730
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English