On this, the 100th Anniversary of AAPG’s Pacific Section, Daniel Steward, its president-elect, believes a T.S. Eliot quote is in order.
“We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
Eliot, however, was not writing about exploration in California. That might have changed the sentiment of his poem, “Little Gidding.”
Still, in a place of regulations, frustrations, competing perceptions and realities, especially as it relates to the oil and gas sector, Steward wants it to be known, “The Pacific Section doesn’t have an issue with being relevant.”
There is good reason for that.
Amid the celebration of its centennial, issues abound in a state that happens to the nation’s eighth largest crude oil producer, the largest consumer of jet fuel, the second largest gasoline consumer, behind Texas, more than 70 oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin alone (more than 9 billion barrels of oil, cumulatively), and has more than a hundred basins in the San Joaquin Basin (and the potential of even more in Santa Maria, Cuyama, Ventura), the Pacific Section of AAPG has quite a story to tell and quite a state to look after.
It always has.
For the past ten decades, it has tracked the good times and bad through its publications and information, as it culled the lessons of the past to make sense of the present and the future. Today’s challenges notwithstanding, Steward said his chapter will always have an eye on the latest developments – even when those developments come to a halt.
‘As California Goes … ‘
“For obvious reasons, it is difficult to see a growth scenario at this point. All of the usual issues still confront Earth scientists, as you may expect, and the Pacific Section still offers networking, resources, publications, talks and meetings,” he said.
One issue in particular is the very notion of the future of oil and gas in the state. Recently, California Governor Gavin Newsom requested that the California Air Resources Board (responsible for reducing air pollution with an eye on the economic impact of same) to analyze pathways to phase out oil extraction across the state by no later than 2045.
“It will certainly never be achieved,” Steward said. “Owners and shareholders will not simply walk away from viable operations here.”
He cuts the governor some slack here, though.
“In general, the press interpreted the governor’s request as the end of oil in California – wrongly of course, but it remains to be seen,” said Steward
Anyone in the oil and gas business in California is partly scar tissue. Still, Steward – who is also current president of the Los Angeles Basin Geological Society – said that, even as fields wind down to abandonment phase, Earth science will have a seat at the table in various forms, all the way out to repurposing land once used to produce the fields.
The principal issue, he said, at the moment, is the decline in general activity, which has led to a decline in the number of students entering the petroleum geology workforce.
He believes you can chalk some of this up to the DNA of California with its strong renewable energy/anti-oil and gas posture, the bulk number of petroleum geology practitioners, and the collective investment of companies across the oil and gas space in the state.
“This is particularly important for the younger generation that didn’t live through the ‘before times’ when activity levels, headcount, companies and a million efforts to squeeze more molecules out of rock were at their peak,” he said.
The Pacific Section, as its anniversary celebration attests, has seen those times.
The Pacific Section Knows How to Party, and Produce
The celebration itself will be held Sept. 13-15 at the Hotel Alexandria, where the Pacific Section held its first meeting and much of its activities for its first several decades. Day One of the two-day event will be a presentation session in Whittier, just south of Los Angeles. Day Two will be a field trip along the Puente Hills with eight field stops looking at the Puente, Fernando and La Habra formations (imagine seeing overturned Pliocene capped by near-horizontal Pleistocene, this residing in an active dip-slip-driven anticline at the Brea-Olinda oil field, which produced its first oil in 1880).
Steward believes even in the current environment, there might be some promise of better times.
“It will be a long glide path for many of these fields to absolute end of life and abandonment. Hence, there remain many active petroleum geologists employed across the state and engaged in a range of activities as you could imagine,” he said.
And while he admits large capital investments are probably not coming back, some operators have envisioned a world where some fields or sub-areas within active fields may be repurposed for carbon capture and storage.
There is always work to be done.
“Due to the extremely stringent environmental regulations – aquifer exclusions and produced water disposal, just to name two – folks keep very busy,” he said.
It is important to engage with practitioners, students and academia to keep the ideas and interest and research flowing wherever possible. To that end, the Pacific Section’s Foundation offers educational initiatives to assist students to attend AAPG conventions and national events, provides support for recipients of the AAPG”s Teacher-of-the-Year Award and funding for Pacific Section publications and the annual Imperial Barrel Competition. In the past, the Pacific Section’s AAPG Foundation has supported publication of the Dibblee Geologic Maps and helped purchase keystone fossils for exhibit at the Buena Vista Natural History Museum.
“Pacific Section AAPG Turns 100” is the official name of this celebration, which, Steward admits, is certainly the story. As much as he likes it, though, he sees the day as more than just a celebration – he sees it as a call to action.
“‘Geoscience progress, production plateaus and possibilities for the future’ would be my working title,” he said.