McKittrick, in western Kern County where the Temblor Range meets the San Joaquin Valley, is where California valley oil effectively began. Native people used the tar seeps here for thousands of years, settlers mined asphaltum in the 1860s, and the Klondike Oil Company’s Shamrock gusher in 1896 became the first significant oil well in the San Joaquin Valley. The field has produced more than 300 million barrels since, from thirteen separate pools ranging from shallow heavy oil to deep, hot, high-pressure zones nearly two miles down.
Long before drilling, the McKittrick tar seeps were a known resource — a natural asphalt deposit at the surface used by Native people and then, from the 1860s, mined by settlers who processed the asphaltum into lubricating oil and kerosene. Drilling into the seeps was the obvious next step, and in 1896 the Klondike Oil Company brought in the Shamrock gusher, the first significant oil well in the San Joaquin Valley. That well is conventionally treated as the start of the valley’s petroleum industry, which within fifteen years helped make California the leading oil-producing state.
The field grew into a district rather than a single pool, with thirteen recognized accumulations across two areas. The shallow heavy oil that outcrops as tar was worked first; deeper drilling in the Northeast Area later found the Phacoides, Oceanic, and Point of Rocks pools between roughly 7,900 and 9,100 feet, with reservoir temperatures of 230 to 260 degrees Fahrenheit and initial pressures reaching 4,100 pounds per square inch. That range, from 12-gravity tar near surface to 33-gravity oil at depth, is unusual within a single named field.
Recovery methods followed the same split. Fire flooding and steam flooding have been applied to the heavy oil since the 1960s, while waterflooding was tried in the deeper pools during the 1970s and 1980s with limited success. Reported cumulative production has passed 303 million barrels, ranking McKittrick nineteenth in California by ultimate recovery, with roughly 20 million barrels still considered recoverable. As of the late 2000s the field had more than 1,100 producing wells, with Chevron and Aera Energy as principal operators alongside numerous independents.
McKittrick occupies the folded and faulted southwestern margin of the San Joaquin Basin, where Miocene source rocks were buried deeply enough to generate oil that then migrated updip toward the Temblor Range front. Where the migration path reached the surface it formed the tar seeps that first identified the field. Thirteen pools span that path: shallow, biodegraded heavy oil near the outcrop, and deeper Phacoides, Oceanic, and Point of Rocks reservoirs from about 7,900 to 9,100 feet holding lighter crude at high temperature and pressure.
Two different problems required two different answers at McKittrick. The shallow heavy oil has been produced thermally since the 1960s using both steam flooding and in-situ combustion, the latter among the more difficult techniques in the industry. The deeper, lighter pools were waterflooded in the 1970s and 1980s, with results described as limited. All of it runs on CalGEM injection permits, and as in every California thermal field, steam volumes reflect a capital decision the operator revisits each year rather than a fixed property of the rock.
Which pool your tract produces from matters enormously at McKittrick. A shallow steam lease and a deep Phacoides lease are different assets with different decline behavior, different operators, and different economics, even though both carry the same field name on a division order. With roughly 20 million barrels still considered recoverable and more than a thousand wells producing, the field has real remaining life, but that life is unevenly distributed. We buy minerals and royalties in Kern County and provide free written offers.
County-level well data, production charts, and selling guides for the counties this field spans:
Tar seeps here were used for centuries and mined for asphaltum from the 1860s, and the Klondike Oil Company’s Shamrock gusher in 1896 is generally credited as the first significant oil well in the San Joaquin Valley. The district predates most of the valley fields that later grew larger.
McKittrick spans thirteen pools from surface tar to reservoirs 9,000 feet deep. Shallow oil has been biodegraded by groundwater and bacteria down to about 12 degrees API, while the deep Phacoides pool holds 33-gravity crude at high temperature. Depth largely determines what your lease produces.
Your division order or check stub names the lease and usually the pool or zone. Send us that information along with any legal description and we will identify the wells, the operator, and what the interest is worth, in writing and at no cost.