A Calgary independent has sharply boosted heavy oil production and plans more heavy oil development this year on properties at Seal, Alta., 190 miles northwest of Edmonton.
BlackRock Ventures Inc. said completion in December of a 52-well horizontal drilling program at Seal resulted in the company producing 10,400 b/d at yearend 2004. Besides Seal, the company also produces heavy oil at Lloydminster and Hilda Lake in eastern Alberta.
Production is about 2,500 b/d at Lloydminster and 500 b/d at Hilda Lake.
Eleven of the 52 wells drilled late in the year at Seal were to be placed on production in January 2005.
BlackRock holds more than 80,000 net acres at Seal, where the reservoir is in the Cretaceous Bluesky formation at 625 m. It estimated that its net share of oil in place exceeds 1 billion bbl of oil.
The 2005 program calls for three rigs to drill 21 vertical evaluation wells and 9 horizontal test wells on the Peace River, Northern, Western, and Cadotte blocks at Seal (see map on p. 40).
The company's early-2005 focus is to continue delineation drilling on the remaining blocks at Seal to establish development plans for those blocks and to begin engineering to move the Orion steam-assisted gravity drainage project at Hilda Lake to commercial development.
The Seal heavy oil brings about 73% of the price of West Texas intermediate crude.
Progress at Seal, Orion
The wells at Seal are on conventional primary production.
The 2004 program at Seal involved 37 wells on the Central Block and 15 wells on the Eastern Block.
BlackRock divided the Seal acreage into 7 blocks on the basis of Bluesky formation geology.
The 6,400-acre Central Block, BlackRock average working interest 50%, involves 11° gravity oil in 5-18 m of pay. The 13,440-acre Eastern Block, 75% average working interest, has 5-15 m of pay with 10° gravity oil. Oil quality ranges from 9° to 13° gravity on the seven blocks.
BlackRock's overall 2005 capital program of $75 million also includes a 50% expansion of the 50%-owned battery at Seal to 23,000 b/d, due for completion by August.
The Seal area, 45 miles east of Peace River, Alta., is remote from most oil and gas infrastructure. BlackRock completed a 50-mile, 58,000 b/d heavy oil pipeline to take Seal crude blended with diluent to the Nipisi terminal for injection into the Rainbow Pipeline to Edmonton. BlackRock owns 45% of the pipeline, which went into operation in April 2004.
BlackRock began investigating Seal's potential in 1999 (OGJ Online, Oct. 3, 2001).
Meanwhile, BlackRock retained consulting engineers to begin detailed engineering design and cost estimate for its Orion thermal heavy oil project at Hilda Lake in the Cold Lake area of eastern Alberta. Engineering will take 8-10 months.
Orion is to be a 20,000 b/d project with steam generators and more than 100 horizontal wells. The reservoir, in the Clearwater formation of the Cretaceous Mannville Group, has 20-30 m of homogeneous pay. The site is near Imperial Oil Ltd.'s 140,000 b/d thermal project.
Orion is to recover 191 million bbl of 10.5° gravity oil in 25 years. BlackRock's working interest is 100%.