Alberta Geological Survey

Gas Production from the Elk Point Group

Gas production from the Elk Point Group is primarily derived from reefs in northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta. There are eighteen Elk Point gas fields with Initial Established Marketable Gas Reserves of over 1000 x 10⁶m³ (35 BCF). The ten largest Elk Point gas fields, listed in order of Initial Established Marketable gas reserves, are shown in Table 1. Cumulative production data include totals released to the end of 1990.

Table 1. Ten Largest Elk point Gas Fields (in units of 10⁶m³).

Initial Established

No.	Field	Formation	No. of Pools	Marketable Reserves	In-place Volume	Cumulative Production	Discovery Year
1	Yoyo	Pine Point	1	45,944	51,104	33,625	1962
2	Sierra	Pine Point	5	30,864	40,803	23,549	1965
3	Rainbow	Keg River	131	15,761	32,118	7,903	1965
4	Mitsue	Gilwood	2	5,317	13,246	4,219	1966
5	Beaver River	Nahanni	1	5,118	7,312	4,996	1961
6	Zama	Keg River	234	4,676	8,208	464	1953
7	Rainbow South	Keg River	63	4,212	9,316	1,480	1965
8	Klua	Pine Point	5	3,944	5,166	570	1973
9	Shekilie	Keg River	88	2,922	5,244	209	1968
10	Nipisi	Gilwood	7	2,815	7,952	1,892	1966

From Table 1, the two largest fields occur along The Middle Devonian reef edge flanking the Otter Park Shale Basin in northeastern British Columbia. Major gas production from the Elk Point is also present in the Gilwood at Mitsue and Nipisi and in the Keg River pinnacles in the Rainbow, Zama and Rainbow South basins.

Total recoverable gas reserves in the Elk Point are estimated at 142.7 x 10⁹m³, of which 79.4 x 10⁹m³ have already been produced. Initial Established In-Place Volume of Elk Point gas reserves totals 214.3 x 10⁹m³. There are 896 Elk Point gas pools, with an average 159 x 10⁶m³ recoverable gas resersves/pool.

Much of the Elk Point gas production is from small pools, such as are found in the Zama field. Table 2 lists the distribution of Elk Point gas reserves according to In-Place Pool Size

Table 2 - Size Distribution of Elk Point Gas pools (in units of 10⁶m³)

In-Place Pool Size Class	No. of Pools	Recoverable Reserves	Cumulative Production
1.0 to 10	122	385	43
10 to 100	631	12,921	1,559
100 to 1000	114	17,898	4,561
1000 to 10000	26	42,203	25,533
over 10000	3	69,337	47,761
Total	896	142,745 x 106m3	79,458 x 106m3