Alberta Geological Survey

Oil Production from the Cardium

Oil production from the Cardium is concentrated in southwestern Alberta adjacent to the disturbed belt. Pembina, Canada's largest oil field, produces from the Cardium and is truly a giant oil field.

There are 14 Cardium oil fields with Initial Established Recoverable Oil Reserves of over 1 x 10⁶ m³ (6 MMBbls). The ten largest Cardium oil fields, listed in order of Initial Established Recoverable Reserves, are shown an Table 1. Cumulative production data for Alberta are updated to the end of 1990.

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

Initial Established

No.	Field	Formation	No. of Pools	Marketable Reserves	In-place Volume	Cumulative Production	Discovery Year
1	Pembina	Cardium	20	231.3	1187.2	172.1	1953
2	Willesden Green	Cardium	9	25.8	124.7	18.0	1954
3	Ferrier	Cardium	12	12.3	77.5	7.4	1954
4	Ricinus	Cardium	49	6.6	49.8	4.1	1968
5	Cyn-Pem	Cardium	16	5.5	18.8	3.8	1962
6	Carrot Creek	Cardium	23	3.9	17.3	1.6	1963
7	Garrington	Cardium	14	3.5	34.7	3.1	1953
8	Crossfield	Cardium	3	3.1	26.1	3.0	1956
9	Caroline	Cardium	10	2.4	10.5	1.8	1961
10	Kakwa	Cardium	6	2.1	9.3	1.2	1957

All of these fields occur in stratigraphic traps, in sandstones and conglomerates deposited in thin sheets as at Pembina or an elongate marine scours as at Garrington and Crossfield. All fields contain light to medium gravity oil.

Total recoverable oil reserves in the Cardium are eswmated at 305.0 x 10⁶m³, of which 220.9 x 10⁶m³ have already been produced. Pembina alone comprises over 75 percent of the recoverable reserves. Initial Established In-Place Volume of Cardium oil reserves totals 1648 x 10⁶m³. There are 297 Cardium pools in 42 fields, with an average 1027 x 10³m³ recoverable oil reserves/pool When Pembina is deleted from this calculation, the average drops to 266 x 10³m³. Table 2 lists the distribution of Cardium oil reserves according to In Place Pool Size.

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

In-Place Pool Size Class	No. of Pools	Recoverable Reserves	Cumulative Production
less than 0.1	76	0.40	0.19
0.1 to 1	174	5.04	2.54
1.0 to 10	37	20.25	12.74
10.0 to 100	8	22.59	15.47
100.0 to 1000	1	25.73	17.93
over 1000	1	231.00	171.99
Total	297	305.00 x 106m3	220.86 x 106m3