By BILL RINTOUL, Oil columnist

October 18th, 1989

A pair of aging Kern County oil fields are running a tight race to see which will finish this year as the top producing field in the lower 48 states and the third in the nation behind Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River fields.

South Belridge started the year with a comfortable lead over Midway-Sunset, putting out 157,500 barrels per day compared with the latter field’s 153,300 barrels daily, or 4,200 barrels more.

By June, the most recent month for which figures are available, Midway-Sunset had taken a narrow lead, yielding 155,019 barrels per day, or 160 barrels more than South Belridge’s 154,859 barrels daily.

Through the first six months, South Belridge produced 28.4 million barrels and Midway-Sunset finished with 27.9 million barrels, or about 500,000 barrels less than its rival.

From first-half results, neither field figures to match last year’s totals. South Belridge production is 1.4 million barrels below output for a year ago. Midway-Sunset is down 1.1 million barrels.

In 1988, South Belridge produced 60.4 million barrels, down 3.2 million barrels from the all-time high of 63.6 million barrels the preceding year. Midway-Sunset produced a record 58.0 million barrels.

There is new work this week for Midway-Sunset in the form of seven development wells to be drilled by Exxon-owned Formax Oil Co., Oryx Energy Co., and Texaco.

Formax filed for four wells on Sec. 36, 32S-23E near Taft. Oryx filed for Globe Unit No. 7-420 and Exeter BAOC No. 654 on Sec. 15, 31S-22E in the North Midway sector. Texaco filed for Security-Midway No. 338 on the same section.

San Joaquin Valley Section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers will present another talk in its Distinguished Lecturer series at its Thursday, Oct. 26, dinner meeting at Maita’s Basque restaurant.

Hossein Kazemi will speak on “How to Waterflood a Fractured Reservoir Effectively,” examining methods for achieving a successful waterflood design in complex reservoirs. Kazemi is associate director of production technology at Marathon’s E&P Technology facility in Littleton, Colo.

Social hour is at 6 p.m., dinner at 7 and program at 8. For dinner reservations at $15 per person, call Lorrie Moore, 834-6382. Steve Moore, program chairman, said those who would like to arrive at 8 to hear the program only are welcome. Reservations are not required.