“Additional recoverable oil may also remain in the other 58 existing oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin,” the report noted.

However, recovery of these reserves would require “unrestricted application of current best-practice technology” and development activity. Given the highly urbanized conditions in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, this kind of unrestricted development is unlikely, the agency report acknowledged.

Dennis R. Luna, Editor of the California Oil & Gas Report, spoke about the legal issues that affect efforts to redevelop older oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin.

Luna, who is also Managing Partner of the Luna & Glushon law firm, participated in a panel discussion on economic, public polity, regulatory and environment issues affecting the redevelopment of aging and depleted wells in the metropolitan area.

He addressed the complex legal issues that can hinder efforts to salvage these wells, and also spoke about the legal and practical difficulties in managing mineral rights in a highly developed urban setting, where property owners are inconvenienced by well development activity but receive no offsetting financial benefit because the subsurface rights are owned by others.

Also participating in the panel discussion were Ali Khan, Operations Supervisor at DOGGR; energy industry consultant David Kilpatrick, of the Kilpatrick Energy Group; and petroleum economics consultant Richard Miller, of Richard J. Miller & Associates. Donald Paul, PhD, Executive director of the USC Energy Institute, moderated.

Dennis Luna is a graduate of Harvard Law School, is a licensed Professional Engineer and holds a Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Southern California, School of Petroleum Engineering. A native of Los Angeles, he earned two more degrees from the University of Southern California – a Master of Business Administration (1971), and a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering (1968). He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.