Yes! That is an oil pump sitting in the middle of a residential area. This is not an extreme example. You can easily find this sort of thing all over major metro areas like Los Angeles (there are 3,000 active in LA which produce 27M barrels/year ). A quick Google will prove to you that new drilling and old well reactivation is a major issue all over right now because oil is so damn valuable.

How do I know if there’s oil under my minivan?
Don’t attempt to drill “exploration” (test) holes! They cost nearly as much as “production” holes, and that’s a lot. Don’t try to hire a team of geologists to divine it out with magnetometers or sonar or radar or sniffers or any other such nonsense. This is all the kind of big business stuff that makes people think they just can’t do it themselves. You want to make money off of their hard work.

A good test to determine if you should drill for oil (really):

• Do your neighbors have oil pumps in their back yards? You might be surprised.
• Are their inactivated wells that are plugged and hard to find nearby?
• Has an investor suddenly started intense and non-obvious construction nearby?
  

Just because there is a pump down the street doesn’t mean that’s where the oil is! Oil pockets are relatively large compared to housing plots, and without even getting crazy and drilling laterally (this is legal), you can probably tap the same pocket.

Don’t see any pumps or plugs? They might just be hidden like this one in Beverly Hills High ! So how do you find a hidden one? All of these things get registered with an agency. California even has an online database that is easily searched , and will generate a map of your area. Here’s what I found around my friend’s place (look at all of them! Solid dot means active/producing):

OK, there’s Oil, now what?

You’re going to want to drill it, dummy. This isn’t as difficult as it sounds. More or less, you’re just drilling a small hole way down into the ground, and shoring it up as you go. You run some “mud” (this is a technical term) down the bit to flush out the rock and dirt, filter it, and keep drilling. Keep adding extensions (cord) to the bit, and shoring up and you’ll eventually be able to start pumping.

You could get crazy, read all about drilling try to buy a rig on eBay (or here ) ($300k+), then go nuts, but you’re probably going to want to find an oil drilling company. This may sound like a joke, but seriously–check the yellow pages. For example here you will find a ton of companies including Excalibur Well Services, who drilled Bruce’s first 30 barrel($3000)/day well in Bakersfield. Many others out there will be enormously helpful and make it their business to get you started .

Lets elaborate using the example of my friend in Bakersfield. We found an oil well right nearby but we don’t know what type, the depth, etc. So we look it up in the aforementioned database and discover that it’s owned by Dole Enterprises, Inc., is active, and probably drilled to about 5,000 feet (this is roughly the national average for new wells but it’s a bit deep for us). Further investigation of others in that area show the depths to generally be in this range. Here are some guidelines that for when you look at your area, or areas where you can acquire property cheaply:

• Existing wells under 2,000′ deep (this is considered shallow, deep can easily go past 15k feet), but up to 5,000 is OK.
• Not all wells around are plugged.
  
• Costs will be anywhere from $50 - $120 per foot drilled (inclusive)
• If you get your own rig, expect to spend at least $20 per foot after the $300k+ investment (but you can drill a ton of wells and go exploring)

The Numbers

Startup costs:

• $0 - Your land–this is back yard drilling, dummy.
• 2,000 x $75 = $150,000 –drilling company services (assume 2,000′ depth)
• $20,000 — Pump and storage. Assume up to 5 barrels per day.
  

Ongoing costs: