The Elk Hills Field is California Resources Corporation’s (CRC) onshore asset located 20 miles west of Bakersfield in Kern County. The field, covering nearly 75 square miles, was discovered in 1911 and has produced over
2 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), making it one of the most productive fields in the United States. During 2022, we produced 38,000 BOE per day (42 percent of CRC’s total production) on average from our wells at
Elk Hills.
The operations at Elk Hills include a state-of-the-art consolidated control facility, remote automation control on over 95 percent of wells, and integrated production facilities for economies of scale, all of which
result in high operational efficiencies.
CRC operates Elk Hills Power Plant, a 550-megawatt (MW) natural gas, combined-cycle power plant that supplies electricity to the Elk Hills Field and supplies excess power to a local utility and California's electric
grid.
CRC also operates efficient natural gas processing facilities including a cryogenic gas plant in California, with a combined gas processing capacity of over 520 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), and a
45-MW cogeneration plant to provide steam and electricity to the field as needed.
Elk Hills Field is also home to some of CRC’s Carbon TerraVault projects, CalCapture and the California DAC Hub.
Beyond CRC’s essential role in supplying Californians with low carbon intensity oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs), and electricity, federal and state resource agencies have recognized CRC for our commitment
to environmental stewardship at Elk Hills. CRC established an 8,000-acre habitat conservation area and received a 50-year state permit in 2016 that will preserve at full field development an additional 17,500 acres in
perpetuity, for a total conservation area equivalent to over half the surface area of the Elk Hills field and over 25 percent of CRC’s total surface acreage. CRC’s habitat conservation program, which is certified by the
Wildlife Habitat Council, also includes operating practices to protect unique plant and animal species and cultural resources at Elk Hills and western Kern County.
CalCapture Project
CRC is focused on maximizing the value of our land, mineral and technical resources for decarbonization by developing carbon capture and storage and other emissions reducing projects. CalCapture was designed as CRC’s
carbon capture and storage+ (CCS+) project to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the Elk Hills Power Plant and inject that CO2 deep underground for permanent sequestration in oil producing reservoirs. In light of
recent legislation adopted in California that bans the use of injected CO2 in oil production, CRC is assessing whether the new economic incentives for CCS in the Inflation Reduction Act could provide an alternative
pathway to develop the CalCapture project.
The United Nations has stated that carbon capture technology is necessary to meet the goal of the Paris Climate Accord to limit temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.
Through CRC’s CalCapture project, emissions from the Elk Hills Power Plant will be significantly reduced, further supporting California’s climate goals and the Paris Climate Accord.
The International Energy Agency calls carbon capture “one of the only technology solutions that can significantly reduce emissions from...power generation and deliver the deep emissions reductions needed across key industrial processes..., all of which will remain vital building blocks of modern society.” Similarly, the California Energy Commission
has previously identified the Elk Hills Field as “an optimal site for the safe and secure sequestration of CO2” and “one of the premier...sequestration sites in the U.S.”