On July 16, 2018, Berry Petroleum Corp., owner of the historic Placerita Oil Field in Newhall, returned to the public market with the launch of an initial public offering (IPO), marking a new chapter for one of California’s oldest oil companies.
While the IPO was a major business milestone, Berry’s ties to the Santa Clarita Valley date back decades through its ownership of the Placerita Oil Field, one of the region’s longest-operating oil fields.
The approximately 700-acre Placerita Oil Field was purchased by Berry Petroleum in 1999 from Aera Energy LLC, a joint venture between Shell and ExxonMobil.
The active portion of the field has been producing oil since 1948, though the area’s oil history stretches back even further, when the site was known as “Confusion Hill” because of its maze of overlapping mining claims.
Founded in 1909 in Taft, Berry Petroleum spent more than a century producing oil throughout California before expanding into Colorado, Utah and Texas. The company became publicly traded in 1987 and later grew to operate thousands of producing wells across four states.
In 2013, Berry shareholders approved a $4.9 billion acquisition by Houston-based LINN Energy. Following the merger, Berry’s shares were removed from the New York Stock Exchange and the company operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of LINN.
Five years later, on July 16, 2018, Berry returned to the public market through an IPO, once again becoming an independent publicly traded company.
Today, the Placerita Oil Field remains a familiar landmark in Newhall and serves as a reminder of the role oil production played in the early growth of the Santa Clarita Valley.
While much of the area’s economy has diversified over the decades, the field continues to be part of the region’s rich industrial history.
To read yesterday’s Today in SCV History, click here.
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