In areas where pumpjacks bob along the banks of the Kern River, Chevron has been shutting down oil wells, pipelines and electrical power.
Preparing for the threat of massive flooding during California’s “Big Melt,” federal engineers have been releasing more Kern River water from Lake Isabella than is flowing into the reservoir from the snowbound peaks of the southern Sierra Nevada.
Brad Vieselmeyer, left, Sean Comey and Wade Nicholson stand near riprap lining the banks of the Kern River as it flows through the Chevron Kern River oil field.With record accumulations in the southern Sierra Nevada, snowpack in the Kern River watershed now contains roughly three times more water than Lake Isabella can hold, officials say.
“It would take us 1½ hours to shut down all the equipment,” said Sean Comey, a spokesman for Chevron. “But the entire section of our oil field that federal authorities say is within the flood zone represents a small part of our Kern River oil field operations.”Overall, the 10,750-acre oil field produces less than 3% of the crude oil consumed each year in California, officials said, with much of the rest imported from other countries.
The impacts of taking wells out of circulation are also felt by a variety of businesses that sell a broad range of well-head services and supplies: seismic analysts, well drillers, refinery operators and manufacturers of metal tubing, mud and cement. “I would not expect well operations deactivated in the flood zone to have much of an impact on the amount of crude we send to refineries,” said Wade Nicholson, field operations superintendent of Chevron’s San Joaquin Valley business unit, “or the price of gasoline at the pumps.”With forecasters predicting a weeklong heat wave, work crews are scrambling to shore up flood defense along the Los Angeles Aqueduct.
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