The oil seems to be very loosely bound in what is close to sand in Kern River, so steam-flooding yields a very high percentage of oil in place. If the oil is deeply embedded in stone with a different structure (permeability, porosity), the results will likely be quite different.

Gail:

Excellent posting.

I especially appreciate the implications of your final two sentences (above). Those sentences speak to at least two very significant issues:

(1) the geologic complexities that are the reality in all oil fields and which are front and center in every past, present, and future effort to determine how much it will cost to recover the not-so-easy-to-get oil in a given field anywhere in the world, and

(2) the continued need for geologists trained to examine core in the detail needed to determine the precise nature of the pore spaces in a given stratigraphic interval, and the interconnectedness of those pore spaces. Seismic information doesn't provide such details, only a methodical description of core, and of core samples in thin section examined with a polarizing microscope, or a scanning electron microscope, and/or other appropriate analytical equipment, can do that.

It's interesting to consider how much is obviously known about the petrophysical properties of the several producing horizons in the Kern River field given its age, and how long it took to grasp that information and how many individuals contributed to the understanding of the geology of this field over the decades. Then, it's interesting to ponder how little we really know about these same petrophysical properties in fields that have been producing for far shorter periods of time, and then finally, how very little we really know about the details of porosity and permeability in promising basins that haven't even been drilled yet.

Thanks again for this detailed report on your visit.