About This Item
- Full TextFull Text(subscription required)
- Pay-Per-View PurchasePay-Per-View
Purchase Options Explain
Share This Item
The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
AAPG Bulletin
Abstract
AAPG Bulletin, V.
DOI: 10.1306/09172523122
The rebirth of the Leduc-Woodbend Nisku oil pool in Alberta, Canada
Mengwei Zhao,1 and David Tian2
1HC Exploration Ltd, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; [email protected]
2MAGA Energy Ltd, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Horizontal drilling has led to the rebirth of the Leduc-Woodbend Nisku oil pool and substantial economic returns. The original vertical-well development produced 91.4 MMBO (14.5 MMm3) in 64 yr, whereas horizontal-well development has produced 17 MMBO (2.7 MMm3) of oil in the past 12 yr and will produce at least 41.5–51.9 MMBO (6.6–8.3 MMm3) in the future starting in 2024. It is projected that the oil pool is destined to be a hundred-year-producing pool and could produce until at least 2075. In recent years, the pool has been generating more than $100 million of revenue annually and yielding free cash flow. This operational and economic success indicates that certain tight conventional oil pools like the Nisku pool contain recoverable oil reserves, which cannot be fully developed by vertical wells and still possess significant room for horizontal drilling development. The Nisku reservoir possesses low porosity, ranging mainly
between
1% and 6% with an arithmetic mean of 2.9%, and low permeability, ranging mainly
between
0.1 and 100 md with an arithmetic mean of 6.8 md. If other oil-field operators thoroughly review the sedimentary settings, lithofacies, and especially petrophysical parameters in their old oil pools developed only by vertical wells and compare them with those in this pool, they could determine whether their oil pools still have potential for horizontal drilling before they will be, or even after they have been, abandoned.
Pay-Per-View Purchase Options
The article is available through a document delivery service. Explain these Purchase Options.
| Watermarked PDF Document: $16 | |
| Open PDF Document: $28 |
AAPG Member?
Please login with your Member username and password.
Members of AAPG receive access to the full AAPG Bulletin Archives as part of their membership. For more information, contact the AAPG Membership Department at [email protected].