This Petro Ninja – Enlighten Geoscience Well of the Week describes a possible sleeping giant before modern geological thinking and technology opened it up. This formation has some intriguing and highly productive wells drilled into singularly unique and isolated reservoirs. It ranges from over 300m thickness over parts of the Peace River Arch thinning to its subcrop. This formation, at first glance, seems to be petrophysically monotonous and of poor quality. It was just a thick pile of rock that you had to persevere through to get to your intended target deeper down section. No one had figured out the relationship to the overlying source rock. And then the successes started to crop up, and now it is hard to remember a time when this play wasn’t a mainstay and everyone became an overnight expert.
You could be forgiven if you thought you had missed a few Wells of the Week and found yourself reading yet another article about the Montney. But I am talking about the Wabamun. Not a thick sequence of dolomitic siltstones but a mass of microcrystalline limestone and dolomite. And even that generalization is wrong as Halbertsma (1994) illustrated.
Whitelaw Member Isopach and lithofacies map, Halbertsma (1994)
I know all the exploration models and log normal pool distribution plots indicate the Wabamun is played out. Sure, some wells, such as 103/04-20-078-01W6/00 and 100/06-29-081-15W6/00 are solid producers. But you have to admit, the major discoveries have already been made. Right? Isn’t that what everyone thought about the Montney a decade ago?
Has the play been cracked open yet? Is 100/02-15-074-01W6/02 the first of many exciting Wabamun wells? Perhaps. It is too early to tell. Maybe some other intrepid explorer is about to show the way. Who knows? But I won’t be surprised to see the Wabamun rise again.
This post marks the last one on the Devonian over the PRA and the last play in which the Arch was a structurally positive feature. Seems like a good time for me to put the WotW on hiatus for a few weeks and enjoy a holiday break. Best wishes to you all for an enjoyable holiday season. See you in 2022.
References
Halbertsma, H. L. (1994): Devonian Wabamun Group of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin: in ttps://ags.aer.ca/reports/chapter-13-devonian-wabamun-group, [12/19/2020].