Steaming near sinkhole halted
| Monday, Jul 18 2011 11:05 AM
Last Updated Monday, Jul 18 2011 11:07 AM
Top story | OIL PRODUCTION
The state's top oil regulator has ordered Chevron to cease steam injection -- a common practice in Kern County oil fields -- near the sinkhole that abruptly opened up and killed a man west of Taft last month.
The July 6 order by the head of the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources does not directly blame steam injection for the death of Robert David Taylor, a 54-year-old Chevron construction supervisor.
But the text of the order does shed new light on the incident, including word that the oil well site where he died has been a problem for at least three years.
Cal-OSHA is investigating the incident. Chevron said it, too, is trying to determine what caused the sinkhole that formed June 21 as Taylor and three others were walking in the prodigious Midway-Sunset oil field.
Chevron and the state division, known as DOGGR, have characterized the sinkhole as a rare if not unprecedented occurrence.
People familiar with steam injection in Kern County oil fields have suggested that the decades-old practice may have contributed to the sinkhole's creation.
Former DOGGR regulator Mike Stettner has theorized that the sinkhole formed as a result of underground construction done at the site in March to address the state division's concerns that steam and other oil field byproducts were seeping to the surface.
Chevron spokeswoman Carla Musser noted that, out of concern for worker safety, the company has closed off access to the area and other locations where it has performed similar construction work, and that it will not restore access until it determines the cause of the accident.
She added in an email that Chevron has complied with State Oil and Gas Supervisor Elena Miller's order and has quit steam injection within 300 feet of recent seeping at the site.
Musser wrote that the company will take further action once it understands the cause of the incident. She also pointed out that Chevron was not injecting steam in the area at the time of Taylor's death.
Several companies that have used steam injection at Midway-Sunset in the past have not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Aera Energy LLC, which operates at Midway-Sunset, indicated it is premature to comment on operational changes made since Taylor's death. Aera spokeswoman Susan Hersberger did note, however, that the company is not currently steaming in the Midway-Sunset zone where the sinkhole formed, even as it continues steam injection elsewhere.
Industry representative Rock Zierman, CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Association, said oil companies constantly work to evaluate and adopt safe practices. But until the cause of the sinkhole has been determined, he said, the industry must wait before making any changes.
"Industrywide there hasn't been movement toward doing something" to prevent sinkholes like the one that killed Taylor, he said.
State regulators have told no company other than Chevron to address what they consider to be the unacceptable problem of steam and other oil field byproducts seeping to the surface, DOGGR spokesman Don Drysdale wrote in an email Friday. He noted that the division did not specifically tell Chevron to perform underground construction work at the site, and that it did not monitor the work.
But he stated that DOGGR has forbidden any seeping in California oil fields.
"The Division has made industry aware that laws and regulations do not permit the migration of fluids or gases to the surface, whether in cyclic-steaming (injection) operations or other forms of enhanced oil recovery through underground injection," Drysdale wrote.
DOGGR's order notes that seeping has occurred at the sinkhole site since before 2008, and that the seeping was a direct result of steam injection.
The oil well there is complex and damaged, the order states, and Chevron has tried unsuccessfully to plug the well in order to stop the seeping.
