Next Event
The SPE San Joaquin Valley Section invites you to attend a general section meeting luncheon featuring Alan Burzlaff of Humble Engineering Advisors, Inc. on Thursday, July 16, 2026.
California Oil Supply Drilling Potential
Abstract:
California has seen a dramatic drop in new oil and gas well drilling permits, from thousands annually to near zero in recent years, due to stricter state climate goals, new drilling regulations, and on-going litigation. This is having detrimental effects on new oil production, leading to increased reliance on imported crude oil and finished petroleum products. A California state law passed in late 2025 allows for thousands of new well permits to be issued in Kern County, California to address these supply concerns.
California Senate Bill 237 (SB 237) signed in September 2025 allows for a maximum of 2,000 new drilling permits annually for the next 10 years. The last time 2,000 new wells were permitted in Kern County was 2019.
Data analytics and publicly available production data are used to predict the initial oil production rate and decline for two scenarios of permitting 1,000 and 2,000 new wells per year. Normalized type curves are also prepared for key oil fields based on the historical production of infill wells drilled in 2021 and 2022, before the start of a permitting moratorium.
The significance of this study is to inform oil field producers, pipeline operators, regulators, and analysts of the potential impact of SB 237 on the California domestic oil supply.
Speaker Bio:
Alan Burzlaff is a Partner at Humble Engineering Advisors, Inc. He has over 45 years of experience in the upstream oil & gas industry. He started his career as a reservoir engineer with Tenneco Oil Company working in Bakersfield, CA and Denver, CO. His consulting expertise includes reservoir engineering, thermal recovery, reserves reporting, and fair market value appraisals. He has authored four SPE technical papers dealing with waterflooding, steamflooding, Monterey formation exploitation, and California oil supply, most recently at the 2026 Pacific Section AAPG / SPE Joint Western Regional Meeting. Mr. Burzlaff is a Licensed Professional Petroleum Engineer in the State of California and SPE Legion of Honor member. He holds a BSc degree in Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines.
Date & Time:
Thursday, July 16, 2026
Doors open at 11:00 AM for lunch and networking; program begins at 11:40 AM.
Location:
Sentinel Peak Resources, conference room 512 on the 5th floor
1200 Discovery Drive, Suite 500
Bakersfield, CA 93309
Event Registration:
There is different pricing for members versus non-members, so please use the appropriate link to register. Join SPE today!
SPE MEMBER REGISTRATION LINK
NON-MEMBER REGISTRATION LINK
There is limited seating, so please register earlier to help us better facilitate the event!
Registration will close 24 hours prior to the event. You can attend as a walk-in and pay at the event. However, walk-in lunch availability will be limited.
Members are encouraged to invite non-members to the event.