California Resources Corporation (CRC) operates 50 fields in the Sacramento Basin primarily consisting of dry gas production which supplies natural gas to the San Francisco Bay Area. CRC holds 466,000 net mineral acres in the basin as of year-end 2022, 41 percent of which we hold in fee.
The Sacramento Basin is a deep, thick sequence of sedimentary deposits within an elongated northwest-trending basin located in northern California covering approximately 12,000 square miles and forming the northern part of California’s Central Valley. It contains a thick sequence of sedimentary deposits that range in age from lower Cretaceous to Neogene sediments in an area that is approximately 200 miles long and 45 miles wide. Producing reservoirs range from upper Cretaceous-age to Pliocene-age. The main reservoirs are the Cretaceous Starkey, Winters, Forbes, Kione, and the Eocene Domengine sands. Exploration in the basin started in 1918 and was focused on seeps and topographic highs. In the 1970s, the use of multifold 2D seismic surveys led to large discoveries in the basin. The acquisition of 3D seismic surveys in the mid-1990s helped define trapping mechanisms and reservoir geometries. The Sacramento Basin has been extensively explored for petroleum resources, and more than 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas has been produced.