Mount Poso Oil Field
The Mount Poso Oil Field is a large oil and gas field in the lower foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Kern County, California, United States. Discovered in 1926, and relatively close to exhaustion with less than three percent of its original oil remaining, it is the 21st largest field in California by total ultimate oil recovery, having a cumulative production of close to 300 million barrels (48,000,000 m3). The current principal operator of the field is Plains Exploration & Production; 652 wells remained active at the end of 2006, while production had dwindled to 554,000 barrels (88,100 m3) during that year, from a peak of over 9 million barrels (1,400,000 m3) in 1981.
The oil field is in the lower Sierra Foothills, north and northeast of the city of Bakersfield, and directly north of the giant Kern River Oil Field. To the west is the large agricultural region of the San Joaquin Valley. Vegetation on the hills around the oil field is mostly grassland. The field is about 9 miles (14 km) long and 4 to 5 miles (6 to 8 km) across, although some of the productive areas are widely separated, and even within the four named areas the pools are often discontiguous. Elevations on the field range from around 650 feet (200 m) at the southern boundary along Poso Creek to over 1,400 feet (430 m) in the northeastern portion; the central area of operations, around Halfway House, is approximately 1,100 feet (340 m) above sea level.
Access to the field is by several roads. Famoso Woody Road enters the field from the west, from its junction with California State Route 65 in the San Joaquin Valley bottom, and Granite Road crosses the field from south to north, also passing through the Kern Front field.
Other oil fields nearby, in addition the Kern River field, are the Poso Creek Oil Field to the southwest, adjacent to the San Joaquin Valley bottomland, and the Kern Front Oil Field, which is between the Poso Creek field and the Kern River field; all three of these nearby fields are in the lowest portion of the foothills as they begin to rise from the valley floor. To the southeast of Mount Poso is the Round Mountain Oil Field.
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