The Wilmington oil field is a broad, asymmetrical, anticlinal structure broken by a series of transverse normal faults which divide the producing zones into more than 50 separate pools. The seven producing zones in the field range in age from middle Miocene (Topanga) to early Pliocene (Repetto). Since the discovery of the field in 1936, cumulative production of the Wilmington oil field reached an estimated 1.049 billion barrels of oil at the end of 1965. Current daily production (exclusive of the Long Beach Unit) is approximately 102,000 BOPD, of which 65,000 barrels is estimated to result from salt-water injection. As of December 31, 1965, total cumulative salt-water injection in the Wilmington oil field was 1.2 billion barrels. Land subsidence has been arrested in most f the field except for a 4-square-mile area at the center of the bowl, where maximum subsidence has been reduced to approximately 0.2 feet per year.

Development of the Long Beach Unit (East Wilmington) started on July 16, 1965, when Thums Long Beach Company, under the terms of its contract with the City of Long Beach, spudded its first well, J-146, on the City's newly built Pier J site. By the end of 1965, Thums completed 24 wells (5 are water injectors) from Pier J and was producing approximately 11,000 BOPD. Geologic information from the recently completed wells confirms in general the structural interpretation based on the 1954 seismic survey and core holes drilled in 1962. Some horizontal lithologic changes are evident. It is estimated that 1,000 production and injection wells ultimately may be required to develop the estimated 1.2 billion barrels of oil reserves under a water-injection pressure-maintenance program during a 35 year period. These wells will be drilled from the harbor's Pier J locations and from four drill-site islands. The Long Beach Unit may reach a peak production of nearly 200,000 BOPD by 1970.

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