Would "Irony" Be The Right Word Here? -- Not a Bakken Story, But An Oil Story Nonetheless

Link here.

Whittier city official Bob Henderson has spent three decades, by his own account, helping rescue vast expanses of this hilly preserve from continued drilling by oil companies. As head of a conservation authority, his responsibility has been to protect the land.

But now, with oil hovering around $100 a barrel, the same man who led the charge to save the 1,290-acre Whittier Wilderness Preserve is interested in drilling there.

Proponents believe Whittier could get as much as $600 million over 25 years in oil revenues by using new technology that they say will only disturb 7 acres of the vast Whittier Hills.

Yup, with horizontal drilling, they could put in 8 wells on that 1,280-acre spacing. With EURs of 750,000, and at current price of about $100/bbl, let's see --- 8 x 750,000 x 100 --> exactly $600 million. And something tells me, the price of oil will be greater than $100/bbl five years from now.

Once drilled, eight small little pumps might be seen and that would be it.

Or he could just cover the entire 1,290 acres with solar panels.

Ten years ago while driving around the San Pedro Harbor, I used to see lots of very old pumps not pumping (stripper wells). Now, when I drive around, I see all of them -- literally all of them -- pumping, and some of these old donkey head pumps look very, very old, having not been repainted in ages. But at $100 oil even stripper wells work for some folks. A lot of these pumpers are in residential neighborhoods, protected by high steel fences, and hidden by hedges and palm trees.