EAS 430: Petroleum Geology Greg Baniak: baniak@ualberta.ca Curtis Lettley: clettley@ualberta.ca

Alberta Petroleum

Peak Oil In 1956, Marion King Hubbert presented a paper called “Nuclear Energy and Fossil Fuels” at a meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in San Antonio. He predicted that United States oil production would peak in 1970. The US Government, influenced by oil companies, disregarded this warning and continued to produce domestic oil without developing friendly and fair foreign relations with oil exporting companies- particularly the Middle East.

The US, despite massive reassurance from US oil company executives, did peak in oil production in 1970! However, because of large discoveries in Alaska, US oil production did rise again peaking in 1985. Unfortunately, due to unfair royalty practices and bullying of Middle Eastern countries from the early 1940’s until the late 1960’s by US Oil companies, the establishment of OPEC occurred and nationalization of many countries petroleum industry occurred.

- Using Illinois as an example, King showed graphically (drawn by hand) that any oil field(s) will go through a bell-shaped curve- later known as the Hubbert Peak Theory- with the peak occurring at the top of the curve.

Consequences The US now imports over 60% of their oil The tapping of “unconventional” oil oilfields- such as oil sands, extremely heavy oil and oil shale- have temporarily offset the impending Peak Oil summit. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was directly the result of wanting to control Iraqi oil- not WMD or democracy! ** Young geologists (Yes- that’s you!) must therefore learn how to properly explore for hydrocarbons while new technologies are being introduced to curb world dependence off oil.

Subsurface Mineral Rights Roughly 81% of the subsurface mineral rights in Alberta are owned by the Provincial Crown. The remaining 19% are owned by the Gov. of Canada (National Parks, First Nations) and by individuals/corporations through concessions made over a century ago. Oil Companies are granted the right to explore for hydrocarbons through “land sale” acquisitions. Consequently, due to Alberta’s great fortune of being located on vast reserved of oil, revenues from land sales, royalties, taxes, ect. have resulted in great prosperity for many Albertans thus why most of Alberta voted Conservative in the last federal election.

Alberta’s Strong Dependence on Petroleum for Income

What is Township and Range? In July of 1871, shortly after NWT and Manitoba became part of Canada, a land survey was conducted to divide western Canada into land sections for agricultural purposes. Today, there are seven meridians (running north-south), and due to 19th century technology, many are considered inaccurate. Townships are 6x6 miles and increase northward. Ranges increase westward every 6 miles, starting fresh at every new meridian. Well locations are often communicated in one of three ways to geologists.

British Columbia Disregarding the Peace River block, NE British Columbia uses the National Topographic System (NTS). In NTS, you have a Map Unit. This Map Unit is subdivided into 16 units (a-p). Each unit is then further subdivided into map unit subdivisions (1-16). Ex) 94-B-9 Map Unit Map Unit subdivision

After reaching the map unit subdivision, it is further broken down into 12 blocks map sheets. Each Map Sheet is divided into a block which contains 100 units (10 x 10). Each unit is then broken down into 4 (a,b,c,d). Ex) b-20-E/93-P-8 b is the unit; 20 is the block and E is the Map sheet. 93-P is the Map unit and 8 is the Map Unit subdivision.

Other Useful Material - For (1h), 2-2-46-20W2M, it will actually plot off the map, but you should still plot it. For (5b), it should be 6-33-50-8-4W2M not 6-66-50-8W4M A gas well is spaced for every 1 section, while a oil well is spaced for every LSD (or 40 acre spacing)- unless stated otherwise. * This is because of the greater mobility of natural gas vs. oil, i.e. the reservoir may be effectively drained from fewer wells.

A Section is made up of 4 Quarter Sections A Section is made up of 4 Quarter Sections. The Quarters in a Section are described as the North East (NE), North West (NW), South East (SE) and South West (SW) Quarters. Each Quarter Section is approximately 160 square acres. Every Section is divided into 16 Legal Subdivisions (LSD) of approximately 40 acres (16 hectares) each. 4 Legal Subdivisions make up one-quarter section. - An “acre spacing” refers to the total area (or diameter) from the origin. In the example, moving a well 160 acre spacing to the west would result in the circle being moved two LSD’s to the left.