page_title: Kern River Oil Field
section_title: History and operations
hierarchical_section_title: Kern River Oil Field / History and operations
caption_attribution_description: English: BLM has mineral estate in Kern River Field which is one of the top producing oil fields in the US. Produced water (water that is separated from oil) from the Chevron Kern River Field is treated, regularly tested and has been used for agricultural use by the Cawelo Water District since 1994. Water is treated using a filtration system that treats 500-thousand barrels of produced water everyday, benefiting 90 farms in the district where pistachios, almonds, grapes, and citrus crops are grown. Photo by Bob Wick, BLM.
context_page_description: The Kern River Oil Field is a large oil field in Kern County in the San Joaquin Valley of California, north-northeast of Bakersfield in the lower Sierra foothills. Yielding a cumulative production of close to 2 billion barrels of oil by the end of 2006, it is the third largest oil field in California, after the Midway-Sunset Oil Field and the Wilmington Oil Field, and the fifth largest in the United States. Its estimated remaining reserves, as of the end of 2006, were around 476 million barrels, the second largest in the state. It had 9,183 active wells, the second highest in the state. The principal operator on the field is Chevron Corporation
context_section_description: According to a California State Historical Marker of the original site in Kern County, "Oil was discovered at 70 feet (21 m) in 1899, when Tom Means persuaded Roy Elwood and Frank Wiseman, aided by Jonathan, Bert, Jed, and Ken Elwood, George Wiseman, and John Marlowe, to dig here for oil.  On June 1, 1899, 400 feet (120 m) feet to the north, Horace and Milton McWhorter drilled this region's first commercial well."
  The current operator of the Kern River Field is Chevron, who has gradually acquired the field through buyout and merger with the various other operators, including Tidewater, one of the original developers of the enhanced production technologies that revived the field in the 1960s; Getty Oil; and Texaco.
  While most of the oil has been removed from the field, enhanced production technologies such as steam flooding have made it possible to extract much of the oil once considered unfeasible to recover. A high price of oil also makes recovery of previously marginal pools attractive. Total estimated reserves of the Kern River field at the end of 2006 totaled more than 475 million barrels (75,500,000 m³), which represented approximately 15% of California's 3.2-billion-barrels (510,000,000 m³) reserve.
  Annual oil production from the field was 26.2 million barrels (4,170,000 m³) as of 2012.
  Wastewater from the field was once allowed to drain directly into the streams dissecting the region, and thence into the Kern River.  This practice ended in the 1960s and 1970s when more stringent environmental regulations were enacted both on federal and state levels.  Wastewater now is treated in facilities specifically built for this purpose, and after the treatment, is used to irrigate crops in the San Joaquin Valley.
caption: BLM employees inspect the Chevron water recovery operation at the Kern River oilfield, 2017. 500 thousand barrels of purified water are produced every day,  irrigating  90 farms in the district.
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