ABSTRACT
Four hundred and ten exploratory wells were completed during 1945 for a total exploratory distance of 1,772,920 feet or 336 miles. This set a new record for California and represented an increase of 95 wells and 335,419 feet over the 1944 accomplishment. The total number of completions, total footage, and percentage of success for the different types of exploratory wells were as follows: wildcats—269 wells, 1,215,610 feet, wells 9.7 per cent successful, footage 8.2 per cent successful; new pool tests—50 wells, 134,676 feet, wells 40 per cent successful, footage 30 per cent successful; outposts—91 wells, 422,634 feet, wells 44 per cent successful, footage 41 per cent successful. All exploratory wells were 21 per cent successful as to number and 17.5 per cent successful as to footage; the analogous figures for 1944 were 22.5 per cent in respect to both wells and footage. Thirty-eight oil pools and fields and eight gas pools and fields were discovered. Subsurface geology played a leading role in locating the discovery wells. New pools, new fields, and successful outpost wells added about 222,000,000 barrels to reserves, but none of the new pools or new fields could be rated as a major discovery. Production during 1945 was about 326,444,000 barrels of oil and 552,932,000 MCF of gas.
