LOS ANGELES — Record prices are prompting oil prospectors to renew interest in drilling in Los Angeles, where urban sprawl, environmental opponents and decades of production make for one of the world's toughest oil fields.

"We're more active than ever," says Tim Marquez, CEO and founder of Venoco, which is running wells and reviving old ones in the city and elsewhere in California.


"That increase in oil prices has caused expansion of exploration and production throughout the country and especially in California," says Steve Rusch, vice president of a Texas oil company that does extensive drilling in and around Los Angeles. "There's a huge incentive."

Oil has been produced in Los Angeles since the early 1900s, directly offshore as well as along city streets. To meet the demands of environmental opponents and gain needed permits, oil drillers have come up with a variety of methods to disguise oil wells so that most passersby don't even know oil drilling is going on.

Among the sites: on the campus of Beverly Hills High School, where students have decorated the panels that hide drilling from public view, and along Pico Street in one of L.A.'s busiest areas, where Rusch's company has hidden its rigs and drills behind facades that appear to be 14-story buildings.