Cat Canyon Oil Field

Cat Canyon Oil Field
The Cat Canyon Oil Field in Santa Barbara County, California
Country	United States
Region	Santa Maria Basin
Location	Santa Barbara County, California
Offshore/onshore	onshore
Operators	Greka Energy (HVI Cat Canyon, Inc.), ERG Operating Company LLC, Vintage Production, B.E. Conway
Field history
Discovery	1908
Start of development	1908
Start of production	1908
Peak year	1953
Production
Current production of oil	795 barrels per day (~39,600 t/a)
Year of current production of oil	2009
Estimated oil in place	2.132 million barrels (~2.909×10^5 t)
Producing formations	Monterey Shale (fractured), Sisquoc Formation

The Cat Canyon Oil Field is a large oil field in the Solomon Hills of central Santa Barbara County, California, about 10 miles southeast of Santa Maria. It is the largest oil field in Santa Barbara County, and as of 2010 is the 20th-largest in California by cumulative production.

The field was discovered in 1908, just seven years after the nearby Orcutt field. At first it was developed slowly, because of difficulties in drilling and keeping wells productive, but as ever-richer reservoirs were revealed in the next two decades it gradually became one of the most productive fields in the state. A mature field in decline, estimated reserves have dwindled to 2.3 million barrels, less than one percent of the total produced in the preceding century. A total of 243 wells remained active, although a field revitalization program commenced by ERG Resources in 2011 intends to extend the field's lifetime by extracting reserves previously considered unrecoverable. The largest operators currently active on the field are Greka Energy with 168 active wells, and ERG, who plans to bring over 300 shut-in wells back into production.

The oil field extends from the southeastern extreme of the flat Santa Maria Valley south and southeast into the Solomon Hills. It is approximately ten miles long on the northwest to southeast axis, and four miles across at its widest point. It is divided into three major areas: East/Central, West, and Sisquoc. In addition to these major areas, the field has three smaller, outlying areas: Olivera Canyon, Tinaquaic, and Gato Ridge. The Gato Ridge area in the extreme southeast was once considered to be a separate field. Total productive area of the oil field is 8,970 acres.

Vegetation in the area is predominantly chaparral and oak woodlands (California montane chaparral and woodlands), with riparian areas along the creeks and grasslands on many hillsides. Some of the flat areas are agricultural, and much of the area which is not either farmed or directly used for oil production is also used for grazing. Wine grapes are also grown in the area: Sutter Home Winery owns a vineyard adjacent to the oil field on Cat Canyon Road near U.S. Highway 101. Terrain is rolling to steep, with some flat bottomlands along the more significant watercourses, such as the Sisquoc River, and the terrain also flattens to the north-northwest at the boundary of the Santa Maria Valley. Most of the Solomon Hills east of U.S. Highway 101 are included within the oilfield boundary.