Oil Production from the Winterburn Group

Oil production from the Winterburn Group occurs primarily in south central Alberta from Nisku shelf carbonates draped over Leduc reefs and in west-central Alberta from patch reefs around the margin of the West Pembina Basin.

Twenty Winterburn oil fields have Initial Established Recoverable Oil Reserves of over 1 x 10⁶m³ (6 MMBbls). The ten largest Winterburn oil fields, listed in order of Initial Established Recoverable Reserves, are shown in Table 1. Cumulative production totals include Alberta data released to December 31,1990.

Table 1 - Ten Largest Winterburn Oil Fields (m units of 106m3)

Initial Established

No.	Field	Formation	No. of Pools	Marketable Reserves	In-place Volume	Cumulative Production	Discovery Year
1	Fenn-Big Valley	Nisku	3	49.1	80.5	48.0	1952
2	Pembina	Nisku-Blrdg	27	28.4	42.6	18.7	1976
3	Leduc-Woodbend	Nisku	6	18.0	46.2	17.9	1947
4	Joffre	Nisku	1	10.1	28.4	7.3	1956
5	Brazeau River	Nisku	10	9.4	15.0	7.8	1977
6	Bigoray	Nisku	10	8.0	15.0	5.0	1977
7	West Pembina	Nisku	3	7.2	8.9	5.6	1977
8	Meekwap	Nisku	6	5.3	13.3	4.5	1966
9	Drumheller	Nisku	3	4.7	8.7	3.9	1951
10	West Drumheller	Nisku	2	4.7	7.2	4.6	1952

Four of these ten largest pools occur in patch reefs along the southeast margin of the West Pembina Basin, and a fifth, Meekwap, along the northern margin Another four fields, including the largest, Fenn-Big Valley, occur in structural traps due to underlying Leduc reefs, as do many of the smaller Winterburn oil fields. The Joffre field is a stratigraphic trap caused by facies change on the Nisku shelf. Winterburn oil production is also found m eastern Alberta at the southern end of the Winterburn wedge edge and in minor amounts in the Hummingbird and Kisbey fields m southern Saskatchewan The most recent major Nisku oil discovery was made m 1985 at Enchant m southern Alberta. All oil fields of Winterburn age contain light to medium gravity oil.

Total recoverable oil reserves in the Winterburn Group are relatively small, compared to the other Devonian horizons, and are estimated at 177 x 10⁶m³, of which 148 x 10⁶m³ (i.e. 83%) have already been produced. Initial Established In-Place Volume of Winterburn oil reserves totals 379.0 x 10⁶m³ There are 229 Winterburn oil pools, with average recoverable oil reserves of 774 x 10 m³/pool. Table 2 shows the distribution of Winterburn oil reserves according to In-Place Pool Size

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

In-Place Pool Size Class	No. of Pools	Recoverable Reserves	Cumulative Production
less than 0.1	28	0.26	0.18
0.1 to 1	136	10.93	6.45
1.0 to 10	60	84.39	64.44
10.0 to 100	5	81.85	77.04
over 100	-	-	-
Total	229	177.43 x 106m3	148.11 x 106m3

 

 

Last modified: August 12, 2008