PETROLEUM EXPLORATION

Production characteristics and sweet-spots mapping of the Upper Devonian-Lower Mississippian Bakken Formation tight oil in southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada

  • CHEN Zhuoheng ,
  • YANG Chao ,
  • JIANG Chunqing ,
  • KOHLRUSS Dan ,
  • HU Kezhen ,
  • LIU Xiaojun ,
  • YURKOWSKI Melinda
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  • 1. Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Calgary T2L 2A7, Canada;
    2. Saskatchewan Geological Survey, Saskatchewan Ministry of the Energy and Resources, Regina S4N 4G3, Canada

Received date: 2018-05-14

  Revised date: 2018-06-01

  Online published: 2018-06-13

Abstract

A workflow that helps identify potential production sweet spots in the Middle Bakken tight oil play is proposed based on analysis of large amounts of production data. The proposed approach is a multivariate statistical model that extracts relevant information from a training dataset of production wells to facilitate geological similarity comparison between economic and sub-economic production wells. The model is applied to the Middle Bakken tight oil play in southeastern Saskatchewan. Data screening for diagnostic geological indicators for sweet spots reveals that several geological factors indicative for conventional oil reservoirs seem to work for the Middle Bakken tight oil play as well. These factors include: a) the NE trend Torqunay-Rocanville structural belt serving as a preferred regional migration path for connecting mature source rock in southern Williston Basin and the Middle Bakken tight reservoir in southeastern Saskatchewan; b) the oils in the Bakken tight reservoirs along the U.S. and Canada border are more likely from local matured Bakken source rocks; c) subtle structural components enhancing the convergence of dispersed hydrocarbons over a large area; d) top seal and lateral barrier improving preservation, thus favouring oil productivity; e) orientation of maximum horizontal stress coincident with the direction of the variogram spatial continuity in ultimate recoverable reserves, so the direction of horizontal well has a significant impact on the oil productivity.

Cite this article

CHEN Zhuoheng , YANG Chao , JIANG Chunqing , KOHLRUSS Dan , HU Kezhen , LIU Xiaojun , YURKOWSKI Melinda . Production characteristics and sweet-spots mapping of the Upper Devonian-Lower Mississippian Bakken Formation tight oil in southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada[J]. Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2018 , 45(4) : 626 -635 . DOI: 10.11698/PED.2018.04.08

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