Occidental Petroleum announced the discovery of a huge new oil and reserve in Kern County Wednesday afternoon.

Few details about the location of the find were given in a press release, but the new find reportedly contains the equivalent of millions of barrels of oil and could be the biggest discovery in the state in decades.

More information is expected to be released on Thursday.

“We believe this is the largest new oil and gas discovery made in California in more than 35 years,” said Dr. Ray R. Irani, chairman and chief executive officer of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, the parent of Occidental of Elk Hills.

Occidental believes the new find contains up to 250 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Oxy has about an 80 percent interest in the new find.

About two-thirds of the find is natural gas and the rest oil, Oxy said in a press release.
The gas and oil is what Oxy described as “multipay zones with both conventional and unconventional pay zones.”

There may be even more, Oxy says.

The company has drilled six wells to define the new discovery and plans to drill more wells  to completely delineate the new find.

“It is probable there are additional reserves outside of the defined area and it is possible that structures of this type exist elsewhere (in Oxy-owned land),” Irani said. “We plan to drill wells to exploit these opportunities over the next 5 to 10 years.”

In addition to Elk Hills, Oxy also owns land and drilling rights in the Buena Vista Hills Field, which is adjacent to Elk Hills and is currently the target of a major seismic study.