Reserves growth in a mature oil field: The Devonian Leduc Formation at Innisfail field, south-central Alberta, Canada

Waterflooding has been used as an effective means to enhance oil recovery in mature oil fields for decades. The success of waterflooding is a function of geology, facies changes, and fluid dynamics, specifically, formation porosity and permeability. Within the Loudon oil field (Illinois), waterflooding has been used to increase production, but the degree of success has been variable. We have used 3D facies modeling was evaluate the variables controlling the success or failure of waterflooding. Three leases within the Loudon field exhibiting varying degrees of waterflood success were investigated. The K. Stubblefield lease, with the highest mean porosity of 13.5%, responded most favorably to waterflooding, with an increase of more than [Formula: see text]. Thick, high-porosity zones are well connected within the lease area, contributing to greater communication among the injection wells and the producing wells. The Rhodes-Williams lease, with porosity of 11.5%, had an increase in production of [Formula: see text]. The model showed that within this lease area, high-porosity zones were either orientated in directions that provided flow away from production wells or were lower porosity zones that finger with higher porosity zones restricting flow. The George Durbin lease, with porosity of 11.5%, produced only an additional [Formula: see text]. The model suggests that injector wells may be positioned in low-porosity zones and, as with the Rhodes-Williams lease, the alignment and distribution of the low porosities inhibit recovery within the producing wells. The 3D models indicated that although porosity plays an important role in the success of waterflooding, the alignment and distribution of the high- and low-porosity zones play a greater role in the success of secondary recovery techniques. Our research also demonstrated the utility and workflow of digitizing older paper well logs to incorporate into modern modeling software.

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Erasmus Haworth and the Completion of Geologic Reconnaissance in Kansas

Earth Sciences History ◽

10.17704/eshi.13.2.h5770131026mw70v ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 133-137

Author(s):

Rex Buchanan

Keyword(s):

Scientific Information ◽

Field Work ◽

State Legislature ◽

The State ◽

Oil Field ◽

University Of Kansas ◽

South Central ◽

Volunteer Labor ◽

Consistent Treatment ◽

The University

Although Kansas geology was the subject of formal study by state geological surveys in 1864 and 1865, no state survey existed from 1866 to 1889, years that marked some of the most exciting paleontological and mineral resource discoveries in the state's history. In 1889, the state legislature recreated the Geological Survey, placing it at the University of Kansas, though it provided no additional appropriation for the survey's operation. Erasmus Haworth, Samuel W. Williston, and E. H. S. Bailey formed that university incarnation of the Survey, which was essentially limited to their field and laboratory work, along with the volunteer labor of students, mostly from the University of Kansas. Though the Survey received no funding from the state until 1895, it was far from stillborn. Survey scientists published regularly in the University Quarterly, and eventually collected their results in a series of volumes that provided the first detailed, consistent treatment of the state's geology. The members of that Survey formed three separate but equal departments, but Haworth was clearly the leader of the band. He was largely responsible for the production of those first volumes, which included the first photographic plates and geologic maps published by the state survey; these figures were strongly influential in the Survey's presentation of scientific information. Haworth became official director of the Survey in 1895 and led the Survey until 1915, when he left to work with his son Henry as a geological consultant. Among Haworth's credits was much of the field work on geologic structures that led to the discovery of the El Dorado oil field in south-central Kansas.

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