Oil Production from the Beaverhill Lake Group

The Beaverhill Lake Group has been a major source of oil production in western Canada since 1956, primarily from the Swan Hills reefs of central Alberta. Additional oil production occurs in the Slave Point of north-central Alberta and from scattered small pools in northwest Alberta. There is no Beaverhill Lake oil production in British Columbia or in Saskatchewan.

There are fifteen Beaverhill Lake oil fields with Initial Established Recoverable Oil Reserves of over 1 x 10⁶ m³ (6 MMBbls). The ten largest Beaverhill Lake oil fields, listed in order of Initial Established Recoverable Oil Reserves are shown in Table 1. Cumulative production data include to the end of 1990.

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

**Initial Established**
No.	Field	Formation	No. of Pools	Marketable Reserves	In-place Volume	Cumulative Production	Discovery Year
1	Swan Hills	Swan Hills	5	148.1	389.1	112.6	1957
2	Judy Creek	Swan Hills	4	75.7	169.4	61.3	1959
3	Swan Hills S	Swan Hills	1	67.5	134.8	56.2	1959
4	Virginia Hills	Swan Hills	4	28.3	46.5	22.2	1956
5	Carson Creek	N Swan Hills	1	27.5	60.2	23.2	1958
6	Kaybob	Beaverhill L	2	20.1	45.6	17.0	1957
7	Stripe Lake	Beaverhill L	2	12.4	31.2	9.0	1962
8	Goose River	Beaverhill L	2	8.9	21.2	6.7	1963
9	Slave	Slave Point	16	3.5	13.1	1.5	1980
10	Ante Creek	Swan Hills	2	3.4	7.6	2.6	1962

Nine of these largest Beaverhill Lake oil fields occur in the Swan Hills Member reefs of central Alberta. Other major oil fields such as Slave, Red Earth, Gift, Evi and Sawn Lake are found in the Slave Point of north central Alberta and result from drape over pre-Slave Point structures. Recent Beaverhill Lake oil discoveries have included Gift, Slave and Sawn Lake. All Beaverhill Lake oil fields contain light to medium gravity oil .

Total recoverable oil reserves m the Beaverhill Lake are estimated at 409 x 10⁶m³ of which 322 x 10⁶m³ have already been produced. Initial Established In-Place Volume of Beaverhill Lake oil reserves totals 1052 x 10⁶m³. There are 165 Beaverhill Lake oil pools, with average recoverable oil reserves of 2479 x 10³m³/pool. Table 2 lists the distribution of Beaverhill Lake oil reserves according to In-Place Pool Size.

Table 2. Size Distribution of Beaverhill Lake Oil Pools (in units of 10⁶m³)

In-Place Pool Size Class	No. of Pools	Recoverable Reserves	Cumulative Production
less than 0.1	29	0.17	0.06
0.1 to 1	101	3.41	10.6
1.0 to 10	23	15.81	9.58
10.0 to 100	9	148.82	115.15
over 100	3	240.86	196.70
Total	165	409.07 x 10⁶m³	322.56 x 10⁶m³

Last modified: August 12, 2008