Early Oil and Gas Production in California

[Applause] 86% of the energy used in California comes from oil and gas drilling for oil in the state began around 18 [Music] 61 today about 132,000 oil and gas Wells have been drilled how was the earliest oil produced a look at Ventura County oil fields helps tell the story Indians began petroleum production in California at the hundreds of natural oil and gas seeps throughout the state here from Cascades of Twisted asphaltum and murky puddles of oil waterproofing and adhesive materials were gathered immigrants in the 17 and 1800s also used as Falon in the 1850s and 60s many were miners they greased wagon axles with oil from the seeps while traveling in search of the motherload when some gave up the gold fields and stayed to mine the seeps commercial oil production began men dug asphaltum from pits such as this in the San haqin Valley the high pit temperatures and heavy gas fumes limited shifts to 20 minutes from the 1860s through 1891 Prospectors tunneled for oil the oil flowed down through the tunnels into pipelines and barrels many old tunnels in Ventura County are still in operation such as these in Santa paa oil field essentially what we have here is the green oil tunnel and it's separate ation tank the original warh tank put in service in about 1890 the tunnel probably produces about 20 barrels of fluid per day 90% of which is water and the remainder oil the water and the oil collect in a line at the tunnel come down 1600 ft from the canyon and into the tank the water separate Ates and collects and is drained off the bottom of the tank and the oil off skims off the top and goes down a pipeline to another holding tank down the canyon all of the system is gravity flow what we have here is the Adams 4 tunnel more recently uh called The Boarding House tunnel this tunnel was uh in the 1890 era the tunnel was completed at600 ft of uh depth and uh it flows about 700 barrels of uh total fluid a day only about a half a barrel or less of oil here we have one of the salt marsh Dunham tunnel group the tunnel entrance has been uh partially blocked with dirt to contain the flow these tunnels uh have somewhat of a collapse uh just beyond the entrance uh the union oil production department now has 28 of the original 60 tunnels in operation the early 1860s saw not only oil tunnels but the first oil wells drilled in the state these were drilled at oil seeps with cable tools a seep on the surface does not necessarily mean commercial quantities of oil are underground nearby however 52 oil and gas field fields in California were found by drilling at seeps this field ohigh oil field near Santa Pao was one uh there's a great deal of early California history associated with this area right here Thomas Bard was um a very early oil uh developer who came out here from Philadelphia in about 1865 Bard started drilling uh right close by by but the first five Wells ran into problems either buckling of the casing or caving of the holes and so on but finally um they brought in what is now called or it was then to ohigh number 6 and was drilled by Cable in 1867 that well floated about 20 barrels a day rather heavy oil but uh was the first well in in California to produce in uh in commercial quantities below us here is a uh a storage tank a so-called production tank from which oil um flowed from Wells drilled in this area they were all connected on this one Jack line below us here in the canyon the tail pump would pump oil up over this slope to a gathering uh tank above that many oil fields are in steep Canyons like sesp oil field discovered in the 1880s in sesp canyon near Filmore Wells were drilled here high up the canyon walls oil fuel supplies heavy Timbers Nails iron tools pipes and Machinery metal sheeting food people all had to be raised up the slopes often tramways were built to handle the [Music] job all this work was done by uh Chinese labor that built the trams which I am standing on one of the uh platforms that was used to haul the material up to the Wells the old uh windless with the one lung engines was used to pull this platform which has got wheels on it something like a train up the tram by means of a cable that went up to the top of the hill went over a series of pulleys and backed down to this pulley here on the end of the uh working platform and they would fire this old engine up and wind The Reel up on the drum and pull this thing up the hill with maybe a man standing on it and another man uh running the engine the guy on the top would flag when he wanted him to stop and that's how they did it many many years ago Carl Brig was asked when the Tramway was constructed he said it was built around the turn of the century how long is the the Tramway from the base of the can it's a the I didn't measure it with a ruler but uh it's reported to be a half a mile long and it raises 800 ft in elevation it's funicular and there's a place in the Middle where there was a a 285 ft Bridge which is destroyed of course by now and just below that while the cars went over a section of four rails where they so that they would pass each other uhhuh and so there'd be more cars than one there was two cars one on each end they had when they'd haul heavy things why they would put weight on the car that was on top to counterbalance the load that was coming up on the bottom one so you rode up on those cars yourself well I've ridden on the cars many many times used to be a favorite Sunday Pastime to come up and ride the tram up here and look around and take a ride back down again well when we get on the car here at the top and start it down again as it went over the hump and started down the first pitch there the cars this car here with the extra weight on it would want to run ahead because the counter weights were changing down at the PowerHouse and uh well the women they'd all scream and holler and figured the car was running away and it'd run about 20 ft and then it'd come up short on the cable and stop and it' do that twice on the way down then it was just a steady ride us way to the bottom when did they stop using it in 1945 they drilled the 1D well up there at the end of the road and all the crew members wanted to ride the traway instead of driving their cars up this road the road had just been built and the company's Insurance wouldn't stand for it so they put a sign up down there that nobody rode the tram anymore and that was really the death now so back in the days when they built the Tramway how did they haul the materials into the canyon to the tram horse and wagon horse and wagon team team and wagon and of course they had a mule Trail up here and when I first came in here they pulled the wells with the mules they uh would put a block down at the corner of the Derk and cable up over and down and then the mules would walk out so far pull the rod up and put the elevator on and the mules they were trained so that when the just tell them to back up they'd back up and ease it back down the hole again just uh instead of using a break Carl and his friends sometimes rode trams in livier ways sitting on a single board placed across the rails sliding down the hill here it's a half a mile long and we could do it in a minute and a half it got in a hurry use the cables for brakes used a uh canvas rubber beling with a hole punched in the corner to stick your thumb through and then you you squeeze on the cable with the hand until the 1920s most California oil and gas Wells were drilled with cable tools a wellbore was cut by repeated blows against the bottom with a large iron chisel suspended from a cable the cable was fastened to one end of a teetering beam called a walking beam that rocked up and down a steam engine powered this movement every so often the Chisel was removed and a Bor lowered to pull out the pulverized Rock assembled here we have the uh remains an exact replica of a standard and cable tool drilling rig and uh this cable tool drilling rig starts with the Union tool engine then we had a uh belt driven assembly to the bull wheel which uh rotated the pitman arm and in turn moved the the walking beam the large wooden walking beam and that movement up and down created a uh upward and downward movement on the cable which actuated the bit at the bottom and then they would bail by use of a Baer and uh bail out the uh the cuttings this large drum assembly here would feed the line in as the bit got deeper the screw here would adjust the the action on the bit the more uh tension of course on the on the line would would uh make the bit drill at a lesser speed these large wrenches here and this Jack assembly were used to break the large tools at the end of the cable in addition addition to the driller on the rig and other helpers the principal person involved was a tool dresser the tool dresser operated this Forge and as the bits became dull through their drilling operation he would heat the bit up to a redh hot molten steel and pound out with the hambers and this Anvil and resharpen the tools would uh keep extra bits for various Ed hole and or other uh angle problems that they may [Music] encounter occasionally the bits would be lost in the well and this assembly of fishing tools would uh be used to recover the tools if possible this is one of the fewest few of the old pumping units suround this originally was the unit that drill the well and around 1912 this unit in the middle is the old Samson post and the walking beam the headache post and the Pitman they originally used steam the steam engine was way out the side there with a long belt running it and they converted to gas engines and finally to electricity because the noise factor of the old engines popping and banging around but uh they just used them connect them right up to the old Wells right when they finished drilling them and produced them right off the old drilling deal here this is an exact replica of one of the old wooden dercks that is in Peele Canyon in New Hall [Music] California this steam Draw Works is one of the original ones it is a very striking uh example of it and then the old bull wheel that used to uh you used to use in pulling and drilling the wells this is one of the uh uh forges what the blacksmith used to make his tools and then on the floor here there's all kinds of assorted tools some of them hand cast out of uh in in foundaries locally in California some of them have very Cathedral designs very pretty the Allen patented pumping unit usually called a jackline unit first appeared in the 1890s it allowed many shallow Wells to be pumped from one central power source a line to each well was hooked to an eccentric at the top of the pumping unit shaft as The Eccentric turned the lines were alternately tightened and released thus pumping the wells this is what they call a central power unit or jackline unit these cables that you see attached to the Pitman on top run out to either counterbalance or to a well and to the Jack lines they use to pump the wells these Unit were built before the turn of the century this one's been here for probably 80 years or more originally was run by steam engines then gas engines and finally converted to electric motors they're very economical to run this uh 2 or three horsepower motor will run as many Wells as you want to put on them all to do must be kept in Balance where they don't have a well they'll just put a counterbalance they want to go down and a canyon they go down a canyon up over a hill or if they want to go around the corner of a ridge they'll just put a dead man with a Pitman on it and go right around and make almost right angles with it to hook up the Jack line or cable to the Pitman and go to the well they just take a hook with a piece of pipe on it shove the cable in and flare the end and import full of babit that makes the connection to hook them up on both ends when they have a broken cable they'll make a splice by just slipping a piece of pipe over the cables spare the ends and pour them with babit and they're hooked back up again well these units will run as many Wells as you got pockets up on the uh the Sentry core and even some of them they doubled them up and would run another unit right off the end of another the well itself Beyond it where were two in line they could run two together on the same cable so it's just about as many pockets as they have on top of the Pitman that they can run Wells through so if you had 20 or 25 Wells they could all be put on the same unit and take no more horsepower all the horsepower is for just about the drag of them just east of Ventura County at pico Canyon in New Hall oilfield well Pico 4 was drilled in 1876 still producing today the well was the first continually producing Commercial Oil Well in California as described on this State Historical marker the success of well pico4 led to the construction of the Pioneer Oil Refinery the state's first true oil refinery and the first oil refinery west of the Mississippi the refinery built in 1876 had a daily capacity of 20 barrels of oil its main products were Benzene and kerosene the refinery now in New Hall is open to the public as a California registered Landmark Carl Brig operates by himself Wells for Texico producing Incorporated in pyu oil field he and his father before him worked for much of their lives in this field they designed and built much of the equipment used to produce the wells while early oil field practices formed the roots of all modern Drilling and production activities these roots are very apparent in pyu field with Carl when we first came up here the well number n had what was for then a fairly modern wooden rig on it and when what year would that have been that was in 30 32 uh 28 to 32 it was originally a producer then it was abandoned and then redrilled and when they redrilled it they put this late rig in there I think they tried some rotary stuff on it but the the Sandstone here would just eat their bits up so fast they couldn't make any hole let's talk about the fire for a minute again if this was in 1934 yes my sister two sisters and my brother we all pitched in and helped rebuild Wells one at a time to where we got production and when these burn up here they just burn everything there isn't a splinter of wood left anywhere and when was this steel Derek behind us I believe they were put in around 1916 that one up there on the skyline has a wooden liner in it because they tried to pull pull the uh pipe out of the bottom of the hole short liner that they had in there and they buckled two legs on it they just put these uh 6x6 Timbers up through the inside of the legs to hold hold the load the bracing was all right yeah do you still use that C the oh yes that's that's my best well to produce the wells Carl lowers the Bor until it hits the oil once the Bor fills with oil it's lifted [Music] out then the oil is emptied into a barrel connected to a pipeline that runs to a production tank [Music] and how much oil at a time do you get in the Bor the Bor holds just a barrel just a bar 4 42 gallons a little more a little less depending upon the gas that's in the oil it's very lightweight oil so it sometimes it pressure is released on it saw you produce two barrels of California oil that's right so what it amounts to the oil and gas industry in California was shaped in part by early activity in Ventura County as the industry grew so did the need for wise production and Engineering practices to this end in 1915 the California Department of conservation's Division of oil and gas was [Music] formed today every 24 hours over 1 million barrels of oil and 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas are produced in the state thanks to California's oil and gas [Music] pioneers [Music]

Channel: PublicResourceOrg

Views: 149,716

Keywords: conservation.ca.gov, public.resource.org

Id: aMbL49KBYe0

Length: 22min 1sec (1321 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2010