With the price of oil up, the petroleum industry is apparently taking a second look at older wells that aren’t great producers–and trying to get more oil out of them.

Which means they’re returning to cities like Huntington Beach and Signal Hill, which once were famous chiefly for oil–not for their car dealerships or battles to claim the title “Surf City.”

This all is the topic of a story on the business page of this morning’s Press-Telegram–an Associated Press story, I should say, ’cause the P-T didn’t assign a staffer to it.

It’s interesting, though–and it makes you wonder what other tactics the oil industry will resort to as our crude supplies diminish.

Would we ever go to war for oil? Oh, wait … .

Tags: California, Huntington Beach, Long Beach, oil industry, Signal Hill, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas