The Elk Hills Oil Field (formerly the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1) is a large oil field in western Kern County, in the Elk Hills of the San Joaquin Valley, California in the United States, about 20 miles (32 km) west of Bakersfield. Discovered in 1911, and having a cumulative oil production of close to 1.5 billion barrels (240,000 dam3) and a cumulative barrel of oil equivalent (which includes natural gas and condensate) production of 2.2 billion BOE at the end of 2023, it is the fifth-largest oil field in California, and the seventh-most productive field in the United States.[1]
Its estimated remaining reserves, as of the end of 2023, were around 115 million barrels (18,300 dam3), and it had 2,387 active oil-producing wells. It is by an order of magnitude the largest natural gas-producing oil field in California, having produced over 4 trillion cubic feet (110 km3) of gas since its discovery, and retaining over 700 billion cubic feet (20,000,000 dam3) in reserve. It is larger than the Rio Vista Gas Field, the largest non-associated natural gas field in the state.[2]
The principal operator of the field is California Resources Corporation. This company spun off in November 2014 from Occidental Petroleum.