Chapter 10 Table Oil Production from the Elk Point Group

View Table 10.3a as an image.

Oil production from the Elk Point Group is primarily derived from pinnacle reefs in northwest Alberta and from basal sands in central Alberta. No Elk Point oil production occurs in British Columbia, and only minor production in southeast Saskatchewan.

There are eighteen Elk Point oil fields with Initial Established Recoverable Oil Reserves of over 1 x 106m3 (6 MMBbls). The ten largest Elk Point oil fields, listed in order of Initial Established Recoverable Reserves, are shown in Table 1. Cumulative production data include figures released to the end of 1990.

Table 1. Ten Largest Elk Point Oil Fields (in units of 106m3).

Initial Established
No. Field Formation No. of Pools Marketable Reserves In-place Volume Cumulative Production Discovery Year
1 Rainbow Keg River 134 116.7 219.7 86.2 1965
2 Nipisi Gilwood 20 62.7 129.6 46.9 1964
3 Mitsue Gilwood 3 61.4 123.4 48.6 1964
4 Rainbow South Keg River 32 17.5 45.7 11.0 1965
5 Zama Keg River 255 17.4 85.1 12.9 1966
6 Utikuma Lake Keg R. Sand 30 12.3 32.3 9.4 1963
7 Virgo Keg River 165 8.9 48.4 6.7 1967
8 Red Earth Granite Wash 79 8.5 37.5 5.6 1956
9 Shekilie Keg River 94 5.3 33.9 2.7 1969
10 Evi Granite Wash 30 4.2 15.3 1.8 1979
 

Five of these ten largest Elk Point oil fields occur in Keg River pinnacle reefs in the Rainbow, Zama and Shekilie evaporite basins of northwest Alberta. The remaining five occur in Gilwood - Granite Wash basal sands of central Alberta. Recent Elk Point oil production has been found in the Panny-Senex area of north-central Alberta and in the Tableland area of southeastern Saskatchewan. All Elk Point oil fields contain light to medium gravity oil.

Total recoverable oil reserves in the Elk Point are estimated at 339 x 106m3 of which 240 x 106m3 have already been produced. Initial Established In-Place Volume of Elk Point oil reserves totals 898 x 106m3. Many of the total 1229 Elk Point oil pools are small, with an average 276 x 103m3 recoverable oil reserves/pool.

Table 2 lists the distribution of Elk Point oil reserves according to In-Place Pool Size.

Table 2. Size Distribution of Elk Point Oil Pools (in units of 106m3).

In-Place Pool Size Class No. of Pools Recoverable Reserves Cumulative Production
less than 0.1 182 1.87 0.90
0.1 to 1 952 55.79 31.53
1.0 to 10 87 77.76 51.50
10.0 to 100 6 82.17 62.91
over 100 2 121.70 93.68
Total 1229 339.28 x 106m3 240.51 x 106m3