The Pacific Coast refining capacity is centered primarily in 

 Southern California in the Los Angeles-Bakersfield area, adjacent to 

 major oil fields. Oil processed in these refineries has come from 

 onshore Southern California fields and offshore in the Santa Barbara 

 Channel. Today, because California production has stabilized, while 

 demand has grown, oil is being imported from the Persian Gulf and from 

 Indonesia. Other Pacific Coast refining centers are in the San Francisco 

 Bay area and on Puget Sound in Washington state. 



A significant future source of crude for the entire Pacific Coast 

 region, probably beginning in 1977, will be Alaskan oil. This will not, 

 however, exclude all foreign oil. Plans are proposed to pipe much of 

 the Alaskan oil east to mid-continent and North Central refineries. 



1.1.7 Natural Gas 



The first known use of natural gas was in upstate New York in 1821. 

 Gas for home use was distributed by numerous local gas utilities which 

 manufactured it from coal. The large steel gas storage tanks still 

 standing in many major cities are a reminder of that period. However, 

 in 1947, a major change took place when natural gas from Texas and 

 Louisiana flowed to the East Coast through two converted liquid pipelines, 

 the "Big Inch" and the "Little Inch". Since that time, the consumption 

 of natural gas has mushroomed for residential, industrial, commercial, 

 and power generation uses. This growth was promoted by several factors 

 including: the availability of new markets; the replacement of coal by 

 gas for space heating, for industrial processing, and for the production 

 of fertilizers and petrochemicals; and the urgent demand for low-sulfur 

 fuels that occurred in the late 1960's in response to environmental 

 legislation. Local utility gas mains increased more than four-fold in 

 the 25 years between 1945 and 1970. The U.S. high-pressure natural gas 

 transmission network has now been extended into all of the lower 48 

 states. 



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