Los Angeles County 



1. Development and Production . Los Angeles County is the leading oil 



and gas producer of the coastal counties. The first wells were drilled in 



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 the Wilmington field tidelands granted to the City of Long Beach in 1939. 



A large scale water injection program is now underway in the declining 



Long Beach fields. Wells are drilled from piers and from four artificial 



islands in San Pedro Bay. Drilling derricks on the islands are disguised 



as apartments and lighthouses. Other offshore oil development is from 



slant-drilled onshore rigs in the Torrance and Venice offshore fields 



(See Appendix I, Maps 15 through 19). 



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2. Onshore Support Facilities . The Port of Los Angeles is a major 



center for oil and gas support operations. Three major shipyards build 

 and repair vessels, repair platforms, and provide fabrication services. 

 The harbor area itself includes over 7,000 acres and supports 13 water- 

 front facilities equipped to ship or receive oil and gas products. There 

 are 23 berths and 13,000 linear feet of berthing space which are used for 

 the oil operations of 15 private companies and by the U.S. Navy. The 

 supertanker oil terminal can accommodate a fully loaded 117,000 Dead Weight 

 Tonnage (DWT) vessel with a draft of up to 51 feet. Future plans are 

 to increase this capacity to 165,000 DWT (this may be delayed if Alaska 

 oil is not offloaded at Los Angeles). 



Storage capacity for oil and oil products in the port is 11 million 

 barrels and more storage facilities are currently under construction. 

 Estimated total capacity will equal 28 to 32 million barrels in the next 

 two or three years. The L.A. Harbor District has announced plans to 

 deepen its channels and turning basins to handle larger tankers and to 



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