Secret Oil Rigs In Los Angeles Uncovered

Originally posted by Smokersroom

Secret Oil Rigs In Los Angeles Uncovered

www.huffingtonpost.com

Did you know that LA sits on top of the third largest oil field in the country? Did you know oil rigs are scattered covertly throughout the city, placed near schools, malls and even a farmer's market?

(visit the link for the full news article)

At the south end of the football field of my old HS (in LA County) is an oil rig, its been there for dozens of years right in the middle of the city.. there is a photo of it here:

www.usatoday.com...

"The real-life Brockovich and her boss, lawyer Ed Masry, allege that toxic fumes from oil wells on the campus have caused 280 cases of Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and thyroid cancer since the 1970s. For the size of the population involved, "these statistics are 20 times higher than the national average for these three specific cancers," Brockovich says."

reply to post by LeaderOfProgress


And people in LA are completely unaware of oil drilling and the value.
LOL
I really think anybody doing this here ( stealing oil ) would be in Court so fast their heads would spin.
But what do I know, I've only lived here nearly 30 years and manage a major litigation firm in LA. Money matters here guys.

reply to post by GovtFlu


That is most definatley a drilling rig in disguise but I have never heard of an active rig for "a dozen years". Most rigs are setup, drill, and taken down in way less than a year. Is the rig active?

reply to post by OldDragger


It's a conspiracy site on the internet, man. Lack of evidence IS evidence!

reply to post by OldDragger


You can't prove that they are piped in under your property. No rig drills a straight down hole. You can try to take them to court but you will fail. It has been taken to court several times. We are talking about holes that are tens of thousands of feet deep. You just can't prove that the pipe is within your property, which mind you, gets smaller the deeper you go. You may have one square mile on surface but even 15 thousand feet deep you will not have a one square mile cross section.

I lived in Los Angeles all throughout the eighties and the cities oil wells actually predate most of the urban sprawl.

The city grew in rapid fits and starts but much of Los Angeles and Orange County was owned at one time by just a handful of ranchers and real estate developers who gradually sold it off.

Even in the eighties in posh Newport Beach in Orange County cows grazed in small pastures next to town homes and expensive condominiums because the government pays huge subsidies to cattle farmers. The Irvine family one of the wealthiest in the nation owns all the undeveloped land for miles around and ranches the cows for the subsidies. Cow pastures, and oil wells that existed before the urban sprawl remain as highly lucrative and often highly substidized endeavors.

Many of them are grandfathered into the laws because just about all of them were there before the people came looking to enjoy the California dream.

The reality is we don't need Middle Eastern Oil there is plenty of it here in the U.S., but the environmentalists that work hand in hand with the oil companies to keep oil and gas prices high block in the courts most of the efforts to drill and refine oil into Gasoline. Longbeach has huge refineries for oil and natural gas that could cause a huge natural disaster if they ever went up in flames, but they were all their first.

They the chicken, the people who came later are just the egg!

let me get this right- they drill sideways under other peoples property and pump the oil out with out telling them?..
surly any oil under the property you own belongs to you, also if your selling your property wouldn't you like to know if its worth more because its on an oilfield?...

My first trip to LA I actually saw oil wells and thought it looked funny. I am trying to think of exactly where, I think it was off the highway near Englewood. But seriously I came back saying "Wow I never knew they drilled for oil in LA". I don't think some of these are as incognito as we believe.

reply to post by fatdad


I think people in the year 2009 would cetainly know.
With potential big bucks at stake I don't believe there is any way people would let this slide in modern Los Angeles. If you don't live in LA I don't think you really get what this town is like.
This whole thing strikes me as a non existent conspiracy.

reply to post by Smokersroom


If i remember correctly there was a member who posted some information like this, but instead there are areas in California that have large walls, so people can't see that on the other side they are drilling for oil.

I think this has nothing to do with a government conspiracy, although I could be wrong. I think this has to do with aesthetics. There have been people who were complaining about the horribly ugly machinery used for drilling, hence walls were built, and even built buildings around the machinery so it doesn't interfere with the aesthetics of the city.

Remember, this is CALIFORNIA we are talking about...

reply to post by fatdad


It is called "Directional drilling", and this is done all over the world. People don't own what is below their properties, the state does. the same is all over the world. There are some areas where oil companies pay a lease to people for puting machinery on their land, but no civilian owns the oil, or mineral rights under them.

The same thing you can find in Europe, and all over the world.

Originally posted by sputniksteve
My first trip to LA I actually saw oil wells and thought it looked funny. I am trying to think of exactly where, I think it was off the highway near Englewood. But seriously I came back saying "Wow I never knew they drilled for oil in LA". I don't think some of these are as incognito as we believe.

LaCiendiga Boulevard that runs into Hollywood from the Airport is dotted with oil wells. They are in the Baldwin Hills region which when I lived in L.A. was an afluent Black area.

You will see single wells in many other places too though. Many of them don't extract a lot of oil but a slow and steady trickle. They are usually small and unmanned devices that pump to a collection pipeline that takes the oil to a storage facility.

Originally posted by fatdad
let me get this right- they drill sideways under other peoples property and pump the oil out with out telling them?..
surly any oil under the property you own belongs to you, also if your selling your property wouldn't you like to know if its worth more because its on an oilfield?...

Most property does not include the mineral rights to the property. The entity that owns the mineral rights can actually claim imminent domain and force the temporary or permanent eviction from your property through the courts but most compensate you at standardized rates.

How J.D. Rockefeller made most of his fortune was by keeping his initial discovery of oil in Pennsylvania a secret and then using seed money from the Rothschilds in Europe went around the nation and much of Russia too quietly buying up the mineral rights from undeveloped property the state owns. A few other notable luminaries did the same thing but primarily it was Rockefeller (Esso/Exxon/Mobil) and Rothschild (Gulf Wester/Royal Dutch Shell) who bought most of them.

At the time it seemed like a bonanza to states and governments to recieve small fortunes for what laid undiscovered in the way of minerals underneath their land.

They waited to buy most of it up before ever actually mining anything so no one would get the hint of the true value they were selling away for pennies for acre.

In the late 1800's when most of this was occuring the people who owned the land and the mineral rights and sold just the mineral rights thought they actually had found the sucker of a lifetime and were getting a heck of a bonanza off of doing it.

It is almost impossible to buy property and also buy the mineral rights.

Since the minerals are in fact the earth itself all you are in fact is buying permission to place a structure on a parcel of land you don't truly own.

It's not a problem for most people except in mineral rich areas of the country. People in those places sometimes are forced to move when imminent domain is declared to strip mine or mine their property. They are paid what's considered to be fair market value and sometimes that's more than fair but they have no choice but to sell. Refuse to sell and the local sheriff will forcibly throw you and your possessions off the land and out in the street.

Welcome to slave planet earth. Slave planet earth is a planetary mining operation. Please observe all rules and obey all authority while on Slave Planet Earth. You will be granted certain privelages while on Slave Planet earth for your cooperation in furtherance of the mining operation. Please note the Exit signs...there are none. Script will be issued to you based on your productivity for use at the company store and to buy additional services and privelages. You may be required to fight to protect your Masters mining stake at some point. Please do not be alarmed if this should occur an ample reason will be given for you to want to fight in the event of stake disputes. Please breed and propogate while on slave planet earth, this helps to further the mining operation and protect your Master's stakes.

Thank you, management.

reply to post by Raist

I think that not only are they keeping it secret to keep from paying individuals their mineral rights, but the government can get that money and keep it for themselves. Not to mention the big reason to keep it secret from other countries. We are not going to share or even sell our oil for the most part until we have developed another form of energy that only we can produce at the time. Then we will sell oil off to the countries that have more poverty and sell the other energy off to countries that can afford it.

Really do you understand that its not a big deal to pay mineral rights. I get a check for 1/10th of the rights of the land I own with fam. (the well is not on my property) Its not that rare to see oil or gas wells across the US. Just in metro areas they are hid in plan sight like those crazy cell phone towers they are secretly hiding by making them appear as trees. And wait last time I checked the if you owned any land around the places they show YOU RICH.

And most Min rights either convey to the next owner or don't its common.


__ Oh yea oil in LA. OMG you mean theres oil in the same place open tar pits are.



[edit on 19/11/09 by Arkansas]

[edit on 19/11/09 by Arkansas]

Originally posted by OldDragger


What nonsense.
There is nothing secret or sinister about it.ANYBODY that lives in LA knows there is oil here.Jeeezz, drive down to Signal Hill and you can SEE wells pumping! Go up to Bakersfield, there are wells right next to the freeway.
The wells are camo'ed because they are eyesores. Big freakin deal.
Hey, we also have cell towers that look just like palm trees!.LA is cluttered enough without oil well in plain sight!

I used to live in Reseda, youre absolutely right about the cell towers. especially in the nicer areas.

reply to post by InertiaZero


Thanks for backing me up!
I park in a 10 story garage that looks like an office building, complete with fake windows. Personally I see nothing wrong with attempting to disguise oil wells, cell towers, parking structures etc. There's enough crappy stuff on view in this city without adding more!

This oil field is the reason they can not extend the LA subway purple line to the sea.

There is naturally occurring methane leaks from the ground that would gas any subway tunnels. The tar pit area is the worst.

Without the oil wells the methane leaks would be a lot worse.
the recovery of the oil drops the methane pressure in the area.

Excellent post! A great find.

Starred~n!Flagged

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


I'm going to disagree with you on that one. My family owns about 1000 acres in West Texas. King County, Cottle County to be exact. We own all of the mineral rights under all of that land. One of our wells is currently producing 300 barrels a day. They pay $20,000 a month just for the lease. The agreement is that we get 35% of the price per barrel. We (our attorneys) LET them have 65%. We own ALL of the mineral rights.

The drilling company comes out and puts the pad in and then moves the rig out to the site. They front all of the money/equipment/manpower. That's why they get 65%.

If we purchase our own rig, clean off the mesquite trees, build the pad, hire the roughnecks and drill on our own,.....100% is ours.

As a side note to this article, My Grandfather in 1972 took us kids around Long Beach and showed us his dozen or so Oil wells he owned.

He said one day he would give us each one for as an enheirentance.
Funny thing was that they were just little round metal manhole cover looking things, the rigs were actually underground.

The rigs(pumps) are only about four feet tall/ four feet wide, with underground pipelines that deliver to a central collection point.(don't know where).

Also, if anyone doesn't know about 85% of Our oil/gas used in CA. comes from CA.!

Imagine that we're paying gas prices like it's being pumped/shipped from Saudi Arabia!

I know everyones' going to think I'm MEAN, but Americans really are the stupidest people on earth! Even the folks in Nigeria know where the oil/gas comes from, and also know how to steal it directly from the pipe! (yes I know occasionally they get BLOWN UP doing it, but at least they know how to do it!) I'd like to see an American even try it, I bet they couldn't (public education system specifically designed to make us stupidest people on earth). Thanks Miss Teacher, I know how to put a condom on, now can you teach me to READ!

O.K. enoughs-enough!

BTW we never got our inheir., gandma took ALL and blew it in Laughlin, NEV., she died (had heart attack) at a Video poker machine! After winning a $400.00 jackpot! (the mortician stole it too!, the DA refused to press case, said it was too small of an amount to waste tax payers time/money on! YEA AMERICA!!!)

BYE BYE