Evaluation of Production Data and Reservoir Compartmentalization for the Trenton-Black River Reservoirs in the Albion-Scipio Field, Southern Michigan

Abstract

The Albion-Scipio Field produces oil and gas from the Middle Ordovician Trenton and Black River Formations in Calhoun, Hillsdale, and Jackson counties in the southern part of the Michigan basin. The field contains stratigraphic traps of fractured, vuggy, and sometimes cavernous dolomite altered by hydrothermal fluids moving up through faults and fractures in dense limestone. Locally, en echelon synclinal sags form above northwest-southeast trending faults that are considered to have formed by left-lateral strike-slip movement after reactivation of basement faults during the Paleozoic. The field is approximately 30 miles long and less than one mile wide. It was discovered in the late 1950s and produced 137,251,793 million barrels of oil and 232,890,182 million cubic feet of gas from 1957-2018. Renewed development began in the field in 2006 using 3-D seismic surveys to identify undiscovered compartments. Most of the new production has been from compartments in and around the margins of the field. Here we present updated production data and compare dolomite thicknesses to production volumes to help understand the communication, or lack thereof, between wells and compartments. Reservoir volume for a given well is estimated by the thickness of dolomitized interval in the well and the lease area. Production volumes within the field are normalized per well on an acre/foot basis. Proximity to faults providing dolomitizing fluids or to the undolomitized outer margin of the field are hypothesized to control reservoir volume.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90373 © 2019 AAPG Eastern Section Meeting, Energy from the Heartland, Columbus, Ohio, October 12-16, 2019