Landslide Oil Field, San Joaquin Valley, California

Barclay P. Collins, Kenneth A. March, James S. Caballero, James M. Caballero, James M. Stolle

The Landslide field, located at the southern margin of the San Joaquin basin, was discovered in 1985 by a partnership headed by Channel Exploration Company, on a farmout from Tenneco Oil Company. Initial production from the Tenneco San Emidio 63X-30 was 2,064 BOPD, making Landslide one of the largest onshore discoveries in California during the past decade. Current production is 7,100 BOPD from a sandstone reservoir at 12,500 ft. Fifteen wells have been drilled in the field, six of which are water injectors.

Production from the Landslide field occurs from a series of upper Miocene Stevens turbidite sandstones that lie obliquely across an eastplunging structural nose. These turbidite sandstones were deposited as channel-fill sequences within a narrowly bounded levied channel complex. Both the Landslide field and the larger Yowlumne field, located 3 mi to the northwest, comprise a single channel-fan depositional system that developed in the restricted deep-water portion of the San Joaquin basin.

Information from the open-hole logs, three-dimensional surveys, vertical seismic profiles, repeat formation tester data, cores, and pressure buildup tests allowed continuous drilling from the initial discovery to the final waterflood injector, without a single dry hole. In addition, the successful application of three-dimensional seismic data in the Landslide development program has helped correctly image channel-fan anomalies in the southern Maricopa basin, where data quality and severe velocity problems have hampered previous efforts. New exploration targets are currently being evaluated on the acreage surrounding the Landslide discovery and should lead to an interesting new round of drilling activity in the Maricopa basin.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91035©1988 AAPG-SEPM-SEG Pacific Sections and SPWLA Annual Convention, Santa Barbara, California, 17-19 April 1988.