Grey: De-Risking the Duvernay Formation Oil Window Through an Integrated Core Analytics, Petrographic and Geochemical Approach

Abstract

The Duvernay Formation is a significant shale-hosted hydrocarbon resource with the medium resource in place estimated at ∼500 TCF of gas and ∼62 Million barrels of Oil (ERCB/AGS Open File Report 2012-06). The prospective trend extends over 400 km from the Kaybob Sub-Basin in the north to the Willesden Green Basin in the south. Due to a favorable tenure system, the play has progressed at a very measured pace from an early exploration phase in 2010 to the current state of multi well pad development. To date the majority of development has focused on the wet gas/condensate window with less than twenty percent of wells targeting the oil window. Mirroring the play trend progression in the Eagle Ford we see considerable upside in the oil window, where improvements in drilling and completion practices coupled with the liquid weighted estimated ultimate recoveries have very positive effect on play economics. During the 2014-2015 drilling season Athabasaca Oil Corp. undertook an extensive core and geochemistry based program to evaluate the extent and prospectively of the oil window in the Kaybob Sub-Basin. There are two significant results of this study: Firstly that rock quality does not deteriorate away from the existing productive regions. Specifically organo-porosity which is the dominant porosity type in the Duvernay Formation is developed at maturities < 0.9 Ro. And secondly, by utilizing a combination of liquid hydrocarbon extraction, desorption, calculated biomarker parameters, isotope and organic pertrography we can predict expected condensate gas ratios away from known producers. These two results significantly extend the prospective fairway in the Kaybob Sub-Basin.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90259 ©2016 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 19-22, 2016