Kern River holds key to future of heavy oil

Pushing production: A pump jack beings heavy oil to the surface at Chevron's Kern River field while in the background boilers generate steam

Pushing production: A pump jack beings heavy oil to the surface at Chevron's Kern River field while in the background boilers generate steam

NOAH BRENNER

By Noah Brenner Bakersfield California

 05 July 2012 22:59 GMT

Shimmering in the dusty heat of California’s Central Valley, the Chevron-operated Kern River field stands as a reminder of where the US onshore industry was born and an ambitious testament to where one of the world’s biggest energy companies thinks development will go in the future.

Chevron has ploughed billions of dollars in investment into the field to coax the heavy crude up its producing wells and to turn the development into a model of how technology can bring hard-to-reach heavy oil reservoirs within its grasp.



Long history Kern River, covering about 20 square miles (52 square kilometres), is one of the older producing fields in the US.

The discovery well for the field was dug with a shovel in 1899 to about 75 feet deep but the workers had already hit oil about 45 feet below…

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