The Orcutt Oil Field is a large oil field in the Solomon Hills south of Orcutt, in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Discovered in 1901 by William Warren Orcutt, it was the first giant field (over 100 million barrels (16,000,000 m3) in ultimate recovery) to be found in Santa Barbara County, and its development led to the boom town of Orcutt, now the major unincorporated southern suburb of Santa Maria. With a cumulative production in 2008 of 870,000 barrels (138,000 m3) of oil, it is the largest onshore producing field in Santa Barbara County.[1]
The Orcutt field was called the "Santa Maria Field" until the discovery of the larger Santa Maria Valley Oil Field on the plain to the north, an area which is now largely covered with the urban and suburban development. Several oil companies, including Pacidic Coast Energy Company (PCEC) and Phoenix Energy, LLC are still actively producing from the Orcutt field.[1] The field, mostly located on the old Careaga family ranch, also contains the remains of the ghost town of Bicknell, a company town built for oil workers in the early years of the 20th century, but abandoned in the mid-1930s. [2][3]
- ^ a b "2008 Report of the state oil & gas supervisor" (PDF). Department of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources. California Department of Conservation. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-05-25. Retrieved January 3, 2010. p. 94
- ^ North Hills Project: history of the Orcutt Hills
- ^ Canfield, Charles (1943). Santa Maria Valley Oil Field, in Geologic Formations and economic development of the Oil and Gas Fields of California. San Francisco: State of California Dept. of Natural Resources Division of Mines, Bulletin 118. p. 440.