Heritage Seismic Imaging Project/ Breitburn Energy

So this project known as the Heritage Seismic Imaging Project came roaring into the Whittier area today causing a ruckus. They state their project will, "use state of the art technology to image and map the geological strata and potential faults of the imaging area." The project is sponsored by SeismicLA and Breitburn Energy. Funny part is in their little "brochure" they dropped off an hour before they started their project, nowhere in it does it say that they are looking to see where they can drill for oil. Yet this is the only logical proposition as you will see in just a moment. Most people will read the term "geological strata" and just assume it ties in with the faults & earthquakes & what not considering it's called the "Heritage Seismic Imaging Project." The brochure directed us to a website for the Heritage Seismic Imaging Project & believe it or not, the website is so simple & has absolutely no more information than what was already provided in the simple brochure they handed out. For a project that came by & shook the house worse than any quake I've felt & for an even longer period of time, they sure as hell don't give much info.

The thing is though that Breitburn Energy is all about tappin that oil. Straight from the BreitBurn Energy homepage:

BreitBurn Energy Partners L.P. (NASDAQ: BBEP) is an independent oil and gas limited partnership, focused on the acquisition, exploitation and development of oil and gas properties for the purpose of generating cash flow to make distributions to our unitholders. Our assets consist primarily of producing and non-producing crude oil and natural gas reserves located in the Los Angeles Basin in California, the Wind River and Big Horn Basins in central Wyoming, the Powder River Basin in eastern Wyoming, the Evanston and Green River Basins in southwestern Wyoming, the Sunniland Trend in Florida, the Permian Basin in Texas, the Antrim Shale in Michigan, and the New Albany Shale in Indiana and Kentucky.

Their headquarters is based here in Los Angeles. The largest individual stock holder is Randall H. Breitenbach. His bio from the Breitburn webpage is:

Randall H. Breitenbach was appointed to be a member of the Board of Directors of our general partner in December 2011. Randall H. Breitenbach has been the President of our general partner since April 2010 and previously served as the Co-Chief Executive Officer and a Director of our general partner since March 2006. Mr. Breitenbach is also the co-founder and has been the Co-Chief Executive Officer of BreitBurn Energy and its predecessors since 1988. Mr. Breitenbach has been active in the petroleum industry for over 20 years. He currently serves as a Trustee and is Chairman of the Governance and Nominating Committee for Hotchkis and Wiley Funds, which is a mutual funds company. Mr. Breitenbach holds both a B.S and M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

BBEP Major Holders

Some of the top institutional stock holders include JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.

So their warnings come a week & hour in advance. They mail out a letter (can't find it but hopefully it has more info than the crummy sites & brochure) a week before & then show up an hour before to drop off the crummy little brochure. Yet they really provide no info. Both websites, LA Seismic & Heritage Seismic Imaging provide very little. What bothers me even more is that just under a year ago, the Whittier city council unanimously agreed to allow drilling once again in the hills of Whittier, even though most area residents were staunchly against the proposal & even that is a mess all in of itself.

Whittier City Council Approves Oil Drilling

The City Council Monday in a historic vote agreed to oil drilling in the Whittier hills. The 5-0 vote approving the environmental impact report came at 7:17 p.m. and the same vote for the conditional use permit was made at 7:28 p.m., concluding the seventh meeting on the issue. The votes came after 3½ years when it was first proposed and about 32 hours of public testimony and City Council discussion. Each council member spoke for about 10 minutes on their rationale for supporting the proposal by Santa Barbara-based Matrix Oil Co. to drill for oil. "I believe this project will help continue our generational quality of life," Councilman Joe Vinatieri said. "This is one of the most significant things that will impact us in the last 50 years." Proponents said the project would bring significant money to the city - $7.5 million to as much as $115.4 million annually according to a city study. Roy McKee, vice president of the anti-oil-drilling Whittier Hills Oil Watch, said he was disappointed in the council's action, in particular there was nothing said about the health issues that could come from the project. "There still is no resolution of the money," he said, referring to the issue of the 1992-parcel tax Advertisement Proposition A that provided the $9.3 million for the city to buy the 1,290 acres in the Whittier hills. McKee and other opponents have predicted the city would never receive any money because Los Angeles County would get it all thanks to provisions in Proposition A. It requires the city to buy the property, which will be used for oil drilling, at fair market value. County officials also say they must approve the project.

There's been a lot of back n forth and lawsuits between the city, county and area residents. Accusations and findings of wrong doing on the part of the city and their attorneys. More info can be found here: Whittier Hills Oil Watch

Sorry I don't have much time to go more indepth. I just wanted to post this quickly & get it up as this is an issue that really bothers me. What's going on in the hills & what's going on further south are two separate issues but they both are close to home & as we all know, drilling for oil never benefits any of us. The only benefit we are ever to get from any of this is lower gas prices & cheaper energy & we all know that those prices are fixed so that will never happen. Gas prices will continue soaring & it's all a game for those in charge. Maybe we should start looking for oil under whatever hills these guys have their mansions on. I'm sure they won't like it then.

I hope I brought this to the attention of a few more folks and hopefully some more people in the Los Angeles area. In case Breitburn ever comes by your neighborhood looking to,

"focused on the acquisition, exploitation and development of oil and gas properties for the purpose of generating cash flow to achieve our goal of providing our unitholders with stable and growing cash distributions."

My major concern is whether or not companies should be looking to extract from the land in an already heavy earthquake risk area. It's obviously a concern if they have "Seismic LA" out here looking into it. After everything we've seen happening with fracking and drilling across the country and other parts of the globe... is it really worth it? What some people will do to nature and their fellow man for some ugly green paper really astonishes me.