Offshore Hydrocarbon Resources of the West Coast of the United States

Mayerson, Drew ¹; Piper, Kenneth¹; Ojukwu, Chima¹
(1)Production, Development, and Resource Evaluation, US Dept. of Interior, Camarillo, CA.

The Federal offshore of California has produced over 1.2 billion barrels of oil and 1.6 trillion cubic feet of gas since the first platforms were placed in southern California in 1967. As of 2009, estimated remaining recoverable reserves for the same fields are about 323 million barrels and 670 billion cubic feet of gas. Development of areas outside the existing offshore leases in southern California has been restricted due to various Congressional moratoriums, presidential exclusions, and an anti-offshore oil sentiment from states and local politicians and citizens dating back to before the last Federal lease sale along the Pacific coast in 1984. Assessments of technically and economically recoverable oil and gas are conducted about every five years. At the time of this writing the last published resource assessment was completed in 2005 and concluded that the technically recoverable resources for the Federal offshore California, Oregon and Washington is almost 11 billion additional barrels of oil and over 18 trillion cubic feet of gas. The latest resource assessment is due to be published in late summer 2011.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90135©2011 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Milan, Italy, 23-26 October 2011.