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The Times - There will be blood around here too
LA Notebook: under my feet lies my fortune. But how exactly am I going to get it out? By Chris Ayres

It’s easy to forget that LA was an oil town long before it was Tinseltown. As recently as the 1950s, a young George Bush Sr sold drill bits here (he lived in Compton, which sounds as incongruous as, say, Dr Dre living in Alnwick). But the oil is still here - in fact, the city is practically swimming in the stuff. One of the main streets in Hollywood, La Brea Avenue, is named after the tar pit that lies just south (brea is Spanish for tar). There’s even an active oil well in the grounds of Beverly Hills High School.

But why have LA’s oil reserves been ignored for so long? Because at less than $100 a barrel, it just wasn’t worth the hassle of urban drilling, not to mention the lawsuits from Erin Brockovich. But all that’s changed. The latest wheeze: using existing drilling sites such as Baldwin Hills to bore sideways under neighbouring (and more expensive) properties, thus allowing the oil to be slurped without anyone even noticing. This is the “I drink your milkshake” technique, popularised by the Oscar-winning movie There Will Be Blood.

Huhh.