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AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 31 (1947)

Issue: 6. (June)

First Page: 959

Last Page: 978

Title: Developments in Appalachian Area in 1946

Author(s): Appalachian Geological Society (2)

Abstract:

NEW YORK. In the Oriskany gas area 26 wells were completed or drilling in 1946 as compared with 36 in 1945. There were no new discoveries. Three producers were drilled in the South Addison pool with a total open flow of 9,927 MCF.

Table I is a representative sample log of an Oriskany well.

Figure 1 shows the Oriskany fields and drilling in 1946.

Table II gives the records of deep drilling in the New York state area.

Fifteen wells were drilled to the Medina sand, the producers making about 2,000 MCF.

In the oil-producing area completions increased from 1,349 in 1945 to 1,739 in 1946 and the daily average production increased from 12,402 barrels per day in 1945 to 12,828 barrels per day in 1946.

There was only a small amount of wildcatting in 1946. Exploration geological work was slight and there were no geophysical surveys.

PENNSYLVANIA. A decline of 8 per cent occurred in the total number of wells completed in the shallow-sand territory of western Pennsylvania (Upper Devonian or higher) during 1946 as compared with 1945. The Coryville oil pool in northeastern McKean County, discovered in 1945, was the scene of greatest drilling activity outside the Bradford field. A slight increase in drilling occurred in the Bradford field and production increased 4.3 per cent as compared with 1945. The small Gordon sand oil pool in North Strabane Township, Washington County, opened in 1945, was extended somewhat. Oil production in the middle and Southwestern districts of Pennsylvania increased 6 per cent as compared with 1945. The recently opened Haskell sand gas pool, south of the Bradford oil pool in McKean County, as the most active of the shallow-sand gas pools.

Fourteen deep wells (Onondaga or deeper) were completed in 1946. Six of these were gas wells, one was drilled for gas storage, and 7 were dry holes. Three of the gas wells opened new pools.

OHIO. Twelve hundred and ninety-three completions were listed in Ohio. Of these 408 or 31½ per cent were dry, 547 were gas wells and 338 were oil wells.

Two hundred and three wells tested the sands above the Berea, 281 penetrated the Berea, 14 were drilled into the Ohio shale of Devonian age, 40 were drilled as Oriskany tests, and 695 were drilled through the Clinton sand.

The activity in the Clinton sand, the most important in the state, centered around the Canton Clinton gas field. There were 132 wells drilled in this area with an average open flow of 2,500 MCF. Muskingum and Perry counties remained active.

The Oriskany sand activity centered in Columbiana County. Although the open flows exceeded 2,000 MCF with rock pressures of over 1,700 pounds, the rapid depletion and the encroachment of water is discouraging.

Little activity is reported in the Trenton fields in northwestern Ohio where 18 wells were drilled with completions of 6 oil wells, 3 gas wells, and 9 dry holes.

There were 5 sub-Trenton tests drilled in the state, four were in Lorain County, of which 3 were dry, but one made 67 MCF of gas from the St. Peter horizon at 4,125 feet. The other sub-Trenton test, which was the deepest well drilled in the state during 1946 was in Muskingum County. This well encountered a small flow of gas from dolomite at 6,558 feet, but drilled into water at a depth of 6,704 feet.

WEST VIRGINIA. Outstanding are the continued successful development of natural gas in Wyoming and Nicholas counties from the shallow sands down to and including the Berea sand, and the completion of a Huntersville chert gas well in Preston County.

A second well producing gas in the Huntersville chert and the Oriskany sand was completed in

End_Page 959------------------------------

Fig. 1. ORISKANY FIELDS AND WILDCAT DRILLING NEW YORK STATE 1946

End_Page 960------------------------------

Tucker County, and the rotary test in Greenbrier County is proceeding downward toward the Oriskany and Clinton horizons.

Rate of drilling is somewhat less than 1945, but rate of abandonments of both oil and gas wells has increased. No new gas pools of importance have been discovered aside from the single completion in Preston County. A slight extension of the Big Lime oil pool in northern Kanawha County was made and a single "Big Lime" oil well was completed in western Logan County.

KENTUCKY. Exploratory drilling in Kentucky in 1946 involved the testing of beds from Pennsylvanian to Cambrian. Successful new-field wildcats were confined to the Mississippian of western Kentucky and the Upper and Middle Ordovician of south-central Kentucky. There were 4 Knox tests of note, one of which penetrated the Cambrian and stopped in porphyritic rhyolite. More tests to these older formations probably will be drilled in 1947.

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