• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Unocal's Gone and L.A.'s Oil Legacy is Fading

Posted on: Monday, 15 August 2005, 12:00 CDT

Wooden oil derricks once forested the Los Angeles landscape like stars along Hollywood Boulevard.

Long before Cecil B. DeMille made his first flickering feature, Edward Doheny began making a fortune pumping oil from a field not far from where downtown skyscrapers now rise.

But while a dwindling number of wells remain active, a once vital Los Angeles industry is running dry.

The acquisition this week of El Segundo-based Unocal Corp. by San Ramon-based Chevron Corp. means Occidental Petroleum is the only major oil and gas company still headquartered here. Chevron, the nation's second-largest oil company, approached Unocal and later upped its offer to about $18 billion after Chinese-owned CNOOC Ltd. entered the bidding.

Unocal joins Getty Oil and Atlantic Richfield as oil companies that disappeared after being acquired by larger firms. Founded in 1890 as Union Oil Co., Unocal had called the Los Angeles area home for 104 years.

"One by one they faded away or were acquired," said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Commission.

Oil production peaked in 1969, when the Los Angeles Basin -- which includes Los Angeles and Orange counties -- produced 165 million barrels from nearly 11,000 wells, according to state records. By 2003, 30 million barrels flowed from about 4,000 wells.

There are subtler signs of oil's decline: A recent redesign of the Los Angeles County seal ditched a trio of derricks.

Doheny is credited with digging the first well in 1892, although oil's presence was known before that. Oil oozing to the surface captured Ice Age fossils in the famous La Brea tar pits. By the turn of the 20th Century, the area hosted more than 200 oil companies and there were more than 2,500 active wells within the city limits alone.

Oil helped fuel the city's growth and produced colorful figures such as John Paul Getty and former Occidental chairman Armand Hammer. Derricks rising 60-feet were a common sight alongside homes built around the county, even in tony areas such as Beverly Hills.

"You'd see oil wells in people's back yards," said Mike Nelson, administrator of the California Oil Museum. "People were literally living in the oil fields."

The Beverly Hills High School campus still hosts a well. Other wells sit just offshore or near movie megaplexes, sometimes covered by building facades or hidden behind fences. Small companies continue to pump oil and natural gas and Kyser thinks older wells that have been capped might be reopened if the price of crude continues to soar.

Southern California still has many large refineries. In 2002, petroleum and coal products generated about $12.9 billion in shipments, according to federal tallies.

But like a well drying up, Los Angeles' oil legacy is disappearing.

Source: Daily Breeze

More News in this Category