• Sign up for the Daily Digest E-mail
  • Facebook
  • X
  • LinkedIn

BOE Report

Sign up
  • Home
  • StackDX Intel
  • Headlines
    • Latest Headlines
    • Featured Companies
    • Columns
    • Discussions
  • Well Activity
    • Well Licences
    • Well Activity Map
  • Property Listings
  • Land Sales
  • M&A Activity
    • M&A Database
    • AER Transfers
  • Markets
  • Rig Counts/Data
    • CAOEC Rig Count
    • Baker Hughes Rig Count
    • USA Rig Count
    • Data
      • Canada Oil Market Data
      • Canada NG Market Data
      • USA Market Data
      • Data Downloads
  • Jobs

Well of the Week  – All the colours of the rainbow

May 18, 20236:55 AM Neil Watson

She comes in colours everywhere

She combs her hair

She’s like a rainbow

Coming, colours in the air

Oh, everywhere

She comes in colours

She’s a rainbow; Jagger and Richards

While the Stones were exploring the genre of psychedelic rock, companies were evaluating Devonian rocks in northwestern Alberta. The result of the former effort was not one of their best ever songs. The latter resulted in 100/07-32-109-08W6/00, the discovery well for the Keg River reef play and the current Petro Ninja – Enlighten Geoscience Well of the Week.

The 7-32 well was drilled by Banff Oil and discovered the Rainbow – Zama field. (As an aside, the names involved, Banff, Rainbow and Zama, seem like those in a B-movie script about the Canadian oil industry? What could be more romantic for a 1960’s movies than seismologists in float planes?).

Figure 1. Definitely not the Rolling Stones in front of their tour plane.  Actually an Imperial Oil Seismic Crew in the Zama Lake/Rainbow Lake Region, Summer 1950.  Glenbow Archives (S-236-46) . albertashistoricplaces.com (2012).

But back to the Rainbow Lake discovery. And it was a big discovery. It isn’t often that an Alberta Society of Petroleum Geologists luncheon makes the front page of the New York Times Financial pages, but the talk on Rainbow-Zama did.

The Rainbow Reef member, and its 435’ of 38.7o API oil and 251’ of gas pay at 7-32, gets most of the glory, but there was also 48’ of Upper Muskeg oil pay and 23’ and 17’ of gas pay in the Slave Point and Sulphur Point, respectively (Hriskevich, 1966). See Figure 2 for a schematic cross section outlining the relationship between the different pay zones.

Figure 2.  Schematic Cross Section across Keg River reefs and related units (Langton and Chin, 1968).

Although the discovery was massive, the discrete pinnacle reefs required the acquisition of an enormous amount of seismic data to find these thick but areally minute reefs, and a run on the pencil crayons needed to interpret all of those seismic lines. Figure 3 provides a block diagram of the distribution of the Keg River reefs.

Figure 3. Block diagram illustrating the nature of Keg River Pinnacle Reef play (Langton and Chin, 1968).

The effort didn’t go to waste, as within 2 years a total of 29 oil and gas bearing reefs had been discovered. Significant new finds were few and far between in the 1960s and Rainbow Lake was a welcome bit of good news for an industry in the low part of a discovery cycle. It also presages the future of the conventional industry.

As shown by the production history plot from for 7-32 in Figure 4, Keg River pinnacles can be prolific. But each one is a unique exploration event. The discovery was enormous but, as with many other plays, it required a number of repeated discoveries to move the needle on a reserves basis.

Figure 4.  Cumulative production history plot for 100/07-32-109-08W6/00.  Courtesy of Petro Ninja.

References

Alberta Culture and Tourism, 2023.  The Dry Period and the Return: 1959-1967. http://history.alberta.ca/energyheritage/oil/the-leduc-era-1947-to-1970s/oil-developments-after-leduc/the-dry-period-and-the-return-1959-1967/default.aspx#page-4. [accessed 2023-05-10).

  1. E. Hriskevich; Stratigraphy of Middle Devonian and Older Rocks of Banff Aquitaine Rainbow West 7-32 Discovery Well, Alberta. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology 1966; 14 (2): 241–265. doi: https://doi.org/10.35767/gscpgbull.14.2.241
  2. R. Langton and G. E. Chin; Rainbow Member Facies and Related Reservoir Properties, Rainbow Lake, Alberta. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology 1968; 16 (1): 104–143. doi: https://doi.org/10.35767/gscpgbull.16.1.104.

RETROactive, Exploring Alberta’s Past. 2023. Zama.  https://albertashistoricplaces.com/2012/08/21/zama/. [accessed 2023-05-10).

Imperial Oil

Follow BOE Report
  • Facebook
  • X
  • LinkedIn

Sign up for the BOE Report Daily Digest E-mail

Successfully subscribed

Latest Headlines
  • Discount on Western Canada Select widens
  • Cardinal Energy Ltd. Announces Monthly Dividend for July
  • PrairieSky Announces Second Quarter 2025 Results
  • US natgas prices jump 5% to 1-week high on hotter weather forecasts, rising LNG exports
  • US delays rule on Gulf of Mexico whale protections by two years

Return to Home
Alberta GasMonthly Avg.
CAD/GJ
Market Data by TradingView

    Report Error







    Note: The page you are currently on will be sent with your report. If this report is about a different page, please specify.

    About
    • About BOEReport.com
    • In the News
    • Terms of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Editorial Policy
    Resources
    • Widgets
    • Notifications
    • Daily Digest E-mail
    Get In Touch
    • Advertise
    • Post a Job
    • Contact
    • Report Error
    BOE Network
    © 2025 Stack Technologies Ltd.