Oil-Black Gold-in Beverly Hills
The theme song from the iconic 1965 TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies, was a catchy tune. For the longest time, many thought the lyrics spouting how there is oil in Beverly Hills - black gold - but the song is quite true, in fact, there is oil all around the Los Angeles basin and more off shore from Santa Barbara, 100 miles north.
In the Beverly Hills area, not far from Rodeo Drive, the oil wells are pumping away incognito, decorated with faux vegetation. Ask any student going to Beverly Hills High School, there is one on campus decorated with floral designs. In fact, this area still pumps out over a million barrels of oil every year making it the fourth highest state oil producer in America. The Los Angeles basin has at least three million barrels under it to pump out. Within the Beverly Hills Basin area, there are 97 oil wells within the 1200 acres. Oil was first discovered in LA 120 years ago.
But, what is more amazing for America is that in the Long Beach area, the Wilmington fields have over a billion barrels of oil under it needing to pump out. This field is 13 miles long and 3 miles wide. With China and India becoming large oil consumers, it is estimated that 95 million barrels will be needed by 2016.