Obstacles stunt Calif. offshore drilling

The Bush administration and oil companies say they want to open up the nation's coastal areas to new drilling, but in two cases - involving some of California's most promising oil fields - they are doing little to make that happen.

The U.S. Air Force is standing in the way of a project to tap into fields containing as much as 300 million barrels of crude - the biggest new oil find in California in 40 years - despite strenuous attempts to accommodate the military's concerns by oil companies seeking access to the offshore fields using a 25-acre parcel of land on Vandenberg Air Force Base.

"It's just mind-boggling. We have tried everything under the sun" to get the Air Force to approve the Vandenberg drilling project, said Bob Nunn, president of Sunset Exploration, a small California oil company that teamed up with Exxon Mobil to propose the innovative drilling plan.

"We are stopped at every turn." [snip]

Meanwhile, the major oil companies - including Exxon Mobil and Shell - have abandoned hopes of tapping into an even larger treasure trove of oil fields off the central California coast that could yield 200,000 barrels a day. Unmoved by this year's major shift in public opinion in favor of drilling, even in environmentally conscious California, they are demanding reimbursement of the more than $1 billion that they paid the federal government to lease the fields decades ago.

"We want our money back, clear and simple," said Edward Bruce, a Covington & Burling lawyer representing the oil companies in a long-running case against the Interior Department over the leases. "You need a tremendous change in the law" to consider drilling there again.

A federal appeals court upheld the oil companies' claim late last month.

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