CRC is a Santa Clarita-based company, created in 2014, as a spin-off from Occidental Petroleum. Its debt load was created from transferring billions of dollars to Occidental.
Initially, the company performed well, in 2018 it was reporting average net daily production of 132,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. In 2018, CRC pumped $37 million into county coffers. Only Chevron contributed more.
First, the oil price war earlier this year and then pandemic-related stay-at-home orders caused a decline in demand and cut CRC’s market value. By the time the bankruptcy was filed in mid-July, CRC’s share prices had plunged 92% in the past 12 months.
Unfortunately, by the time it filed for bankruptcy, nearly half of its 17,500 wells sat idle. Production had all but stopped from the tidelands of Long Beach and Huntington Beach to the sprawling Elk Hills oil field.
The bankruptcy filing is another blow to the state of California’s already distressed economy. CRC had about 1,250 California based employees at the beginning of 2020, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. It is also one of Kern County’s top property taxpayers.
