Key Facts

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  • E&B Natural Resources Management Corp., has filed an application with City of Hermosa Beach to construct and operate a single, onshore oil recovery facility to access already developed onshore and offshore oil reserves within the City’s jurisdiction.
  • This filing is the next step in a settlement agreement between the City and E&B, and begins the public review process for the proposed project, including the preparation of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that will address air and water quality, geology, hazards, aesthetics, noise, traffic, parking, and other issues; review by local, regional, and state agencies, as well as local voter approval.
  • The project will utilize environmentally responsible directional drilling technology to safely recover oil, protect the coast and surrounding neighborhoods, and provide a new revenue stream to the Hermosa Beach Community.
  • Royalty revenues from both recovered tidelands and uplands oil resources, as well as new tax revenues, will flow to the City and Schools -- potentially cumulating in hundreds of millions of dollars over the 30+ year life of the project.
  • The project will be sited within the City’s light manufacturing area, adjacent to a City-designated truck route, located at the City Maintenance Yard at Valley Drive and 6th Street, approximately seven blocks east of the beach and the Pacific Ocean.
  • All recovery and processing operations will remain within the 1.3-acre site -- not multiple locations. The site historically was utilized as the City’s municipal waste facility, and also housed earlier oil recovery operations.
  • All construction and operations of the proposed facility will utilize today’s latest, proven technology to address potential environmental issues, to meet and exceed regulatory requirements, and to safeguard workers and the surrounding community.
  • Technologies developed for the sensitive offshore environment will be incorporated into this onshore project to provide maximum safety and environmental protection. Automation and redundancy will increase project safety. All recovery and processing operations will be fully contained within the site, and will utilize a closed loop design, protecting the project site and surrounding community from the risk of spills or accidents.
  • NO controversial shale “hydraulic fracking” technology will be used for oil recovery. This well-characterized and previously developed portion of the Torrance Oil Field is comprised of inter-bedded thin sands and naturally fractured shales that already provide the reservoir characteristics necessary for oil production.
  • The oil recovery project will safely produce needed domestic energy supplies from existing resources, not develop new ones – effectively maximizing efficient oil recovery, adding to California’s constrained supply marketplace, and contributing to energy security.
  • There are 4 phases to the project, including a site demolition and construction phase, a test phase with drilling of test wells, a final construction phase, and the final drilling and production phase that entails completion of up to 30 individual oil production wells and 4 water re-injection wells in an underground cellar, with fully contained recovery and processing facilities, capable of handling up to a maximum estimated 8,000 barrels of oil and 2.5 million cubic feet of associated natural gas per day.
  • Project-related activities offsite site include installation of utility infrastructure needed to operate the facility, construction of pipelines needed to deliver the resources to market, and use of City-designated truck routes during the test and construction phases. Normal operations will result in less traffic than the current use, and normal production operations will be quietly maintained behind a 16-foot block wall, with a 10 foot landscaped setback along the adjacent roadways.
  • The project will demonstrate compliance with the existing requirements of the City’s approved Conditional Use Permit for the site, as well as the existing oil and gas lease with the City.

 

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