Ellwood Oil Field

It was the first direct naval bombardment of the continental U.S. since the Civil War, causing an invasion scare on the West Coast.

The onshore portions of the field include beach, coastal bluffs, blufftop grasslands, and eucalyptus groves.

[2] The climate is Mediterranean, with an equable temperature regime year-round, and most of the precipitation falling between October and April in the form of rain.

The last production from this field was from Platform Holly, which is in 211 feet (64 m) of water, about two miles (3.2 km) from the coast at Coal Oil Point and has been shut down.

The upper Monterey Formation contains a large pool in a zone of fractured shale at an average depth of 3,350 feet (1,020 m) below the ocean floor.

This discovery touched off a period of oil leasing and wildcat well drilling on the Santa Barbara south coast, from Carpinteria to Gaviota.

[11][12] A local myth, which was told by local writer Walker A. Tompkins and others as fact, says that in the late 1930s, Kozo Nishino, the skipper of a Japanese oil tanker, visited the field and tripped and fell into a patch of prickly pear cactus, provoking laughter from a group of nearby oil workers.

Kozo was a military service member who never worked on an oil tanker, as shown by Imperial Japanese Navy records that document his roles on submarines from the early 1920s through 1943.

[14] During World War II, Kozo was captain of Japanese submarine I-17, which surfaced just off of Coal Oil Point on the evening of February 23, 1942.

His gunners were poor shots, and most of the shells went wild, exploding either miles inland on Tecolote Ranch, or splashing in the water.

The site of the oilfield equipment damaged by the Japanese is Santa Barbara County property, which may be traversed by the public, on the beach below the Sandpiper Golf Course.

[18] The existence of an offshore field was suspected for a long time, largely due to the persistent natural seepage of oil from the sea floor.

In 1966, ARCO built Platform Holly, in 211 feet (64 m) of water approximately two miles (3.2 km) southwest of Coal Oil Point, and began drilling wells into the various zones in the South Ellwood Offshore field.

[23] The California State Lands Commission work to plug and abandon the wells began in 2019, with an estimated two to three years until completion.