Great article and look where it came from…. University of California, Santa Barbara. If you think about it this makes so much sense. What happens is pressure builds and hes to be released so where else? The ocean floor. How do you stop it? Drill, release the pressure and stop the seepage.

UCSB Press Release: “OIL AND GAS SEEPAGE FROM OCEAN FLOOR  REDUCED BY OIL PRODUCTION”

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) Next time you step on a glob of tar on a beach in Santa Barbara County, you can thank the oil companies that it isn’t a bigger glob.

The same is true around the world, on other beaches where off-shore oil drilling occurs, say scientists, although Santa Barbara’s oil seeps are thought to be among the leakiest.

Natural seepage of hydrocarbons from the ocean floor in the northern Santa Barbara Channel has been significantly reduced by oil production, according to two recently published peer-reviewed articles, one in November’s Geology Magazine, the other in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans.

The Santa Barbara Channel provides an excellent natural laboratory, as it is among the areas with the highest levels of seepage in the world, said co-author Bruce P. Luyendyk, professor and chair of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The studies were not funded by oil companies, but rather by the University of California Energy Institute and the U.S. Minerals Management Service, states Luyendyk, responding to the fact that the results favor off-shore oil production and are opposed by some environmentalists.

“We’ve done a good piece of science,” said Luyendyk. “We’ve developed a good understanding of a natural process. It’s all public data; it’s all straightforward. If I thought the study was compromised I wouldn’t be involved in it.”

Most of the seepage is methane, a potent greenhouse gas which escapes into the atmosphere, said Luyendyk. About 10 percent of the seepage is composed of “higher hydrocarbons,” or reactive organic gases which interact with tailpipe emissions and sunlight, creating air pollution.

The researchers state that the production rate of these naturally-occurring reactive organic gases is equal to twice the emission rate from all the on-road vehicle traffic in Santa Barbara County in 1990.