Alberta Geological Survey

Oil Production from the Wabamun Group

Oil production from the Wabamun Group is minor compared to other Devonian producing zones. Production is concentrated in the Eaglesham-Tangent area in west-central Alberta, and m southern Alberta. Minor scattered Wabamun oil production also occurs in northwestern Alberta and in western Saskatchewan. There is no Wabamun oil production from British Columbia.

There are only three Wabamun oil fields with Initial Established Recoverable Oil Reserves of over 1 x 10⁶m³ (6 MMBbls) These three Wabamun oil fields, listed in order of Initial Established Recoverable Reserves, are shown in Table 1. Cumulative production totals include Alberta data released to December 3l, 1990.

Table 1- Three Largest Wabamun Oil Fields (m units of 10⁶m³)

Initial Established

No.	Field	Formation	No. of Pools	Marketable Reserves	In-place Volume	Cumulative Production	Discovery Year
1	Tangent	Wabamun	40	2.1	12.1	0.9	1981
2	Eaglesham North	Wabamun	14	1.4	5.8	0.3	1987
3	Garrington (Olds)	Wabamun A	1	1.3	6.5	1.2	1965

The first two fields are structural traps resulting from porous fracture zones along the southeast margin of the Peace River Arch. The Garrington field occurs within the Crossfield Member and results from updip porosity pinchout due to increasing anhydrite content. Smaller Wabamun oil fields also occur along the eroded Wabamun unconformity edge in eastern Alberta. Twenty-nine of the 31 Wabamun oil fields contain light to medium gravity oil

Total recoverable oil reserves in the Wabamun Group are very low compared to the other Devonian horizons, and are estimated at 7.2 x 10⁶m³, of which 3.2 x 10⁶m³ have already been produced. Initial Established In-Place Volume of Wabamun oil reserves totals 45.6 x 10⁶m³. There are 120 Wabamun oil pools, with average recoverable oil reserves of 60 x 10³m³/pool. There are no pools with in-place volumes of over 10 x 10⁶m³. Table 2 lists the distribution of Wabamun oil reserves according to In-Place Pool Size

Table 2 - Size Distribution of Wabamun Oil Pools (in units of 10⁶m³)

In-Place Pool Size Class	No. of Pools	Recoverable Reserves	Cumulative Production
less than 0.1	27	0.21	0.08
0.1 to 1	87	5.02	1.77
1.0 to 10	6	1.93	1.39
10.0 to 100	-	-	-
over 100	-	-	-
Total	120	7.17 x 106m3	3.23 x 106m3