Engineering and Producing History of the Weyburn Field, Saskatchewan

CIM Bulletin, 1959

By THE ENGINEERING and PRODUCTION STAFF, CENTRAL-DEL RIO OILS LIMITED

The Weyburn Oil Field, located 80miles southeast of Regina, Saskatchewan, was discovered by Central Del Rio Oils Limited, in January, 1955. As of January 1st, 1959, the field had 357 wells capable of producing an estimated total of 45,100 barrels of oil per day. Highly portable, economical, drilling rigs are used to penetrate the pay at a depth of 4,400 to 5,100 feet. Presently, the complete drilling operation for an average field well, including drilling, coring, testing, and running casing, requires 12 days. Drilling procedures are conventional for a field of this depth and no serious problems exist. Central-Del Rio core the productive section of all their wells, which provides valuable information for well completions and reservoir studies. Production casing procedure is to set through the zone and perforate the productive interval. This was found advisable due to the lensing nature of the porosity and permeability throughout the reservoir, and to the high connate water saturation encountered in the tighter sections of the reservoir in the north and northeast areas of the field. Although a few wells in the field have produced naturally by flowing or pumping without acid treatment, it has generally been necessary to acidize the wells to make them commercial producers. To date, acid treatments appear to effect better stimulation of the limestone reservoir than fracturing treatments. Perforation sealing balls have been used as an aid in selectively treating all of the perforated interval. The majority of the field is on pump, producing at a low gas-oil ratio. The main part of the field has water-free production, with most of the water being produced in the north and northeastern area. Salt-water disposal is now available in the field through two disposal wells completed in the Basal Blairmore sand.

Keywords: connate water, limestone, porosity, Regina, Saskatchewan, reservoir, Drilling, North, Oil, Oils, Porosity, Production, Saskatchewan, Water, Waters, Wells