ExxonMobil’s Heritage platform—one of the company’s three drilling platforms located in federal waters 8.2 miles off Gaviota’s coast—reached world record standing, the Houston based corporation announced on 4/16. The unit’s well is reportedly now the longest extended-reach well drilled from an existing offshore fixed platform and extends more than six miles horizontally and more than 7,000 feet below sea level. The well will purportedly be able to produce an extra 5.8 million barrels of oil, an amount equal to the annual energy consumption of more than 144,000 Californians. Since 1981, the three locations have harvested a combined total of more than 450 million barrels of oil.
