For a long time, my inner etymologist was intrigued by some names in the Alberta Table of Formations. A case in point is the Grosmont formation. The Grosmont is named after the nearby town of Grosmont. But what is Grosmont named after? Does the northeastern Alberta town have a namesake in Yorkshire? Or is it a reference in French to a Big Mountain? I’m pretty sure no one had the foresight to realize it could refer to a huge mound of oil in the Grosmont carbonates. This chapter in the Petro [Read more]
Well of the Week – Can carbonates save the world?
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.” W. Shakespeare, Henry V (follow the link to read the whole speech) The oil and gas industry has a long history of developing the technology to mitigate various risks as they arise. Whether the problem was blowouts, H2S, induced seismicity or other hazards, we have always found a way to mitigate these risks. To continue with the allusion to King Hal, the move net zero threw down yet another gauntlet. This Petro Ninja – Enlighten [Read more]
Well of the Week – Let’s play connect the dots!
A bit of a more whimsical post since we are likely all focused on the upcoming Family Day weekend. The New Golden Age of Carbonates involves the exploitation of these complex reservoirs to produce resources alternative to oil and gas. It also is an opportunity for old “no longer prospective” formations to once again take centre stage in the oil and gas industry. We will have to consider a list of Petro Ninja – Enlighten Geoscience Wells of the Week to come to grips with a very intriguing play [Read more]
Well of the Week – Lithium Rising
The world has changed. I see it in the water. I feel it in the Earth. J. R. R. Tolkien One sign we are entering a New Golden Age of Carbonates is the growing realization that this massive carbonate pore space resource can produce more than oil and gas. A case in point is the goal of extracting lithium from Devonian formation waters. This application has the potential to provide the feedstock to build the batteries which will in turn store the electricity to power the energy [Read more]
Well of the Week – The Circle Game
History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme. (attributed to) Mark Twain. The first post in this series on the New Golden Age of Carbonates discusses how exploration is a cyclical process. Some fields, plays or even entire basins are deemed to be played out until fresh eyes, a new technical application or, more likely, a combination of the two discovers what was present in plain sight, and a new cycle of development takes place. This Petro Ninja – Enlighten Geoscience Well of [Read more]
Well of the Week – The Once and Future King
The start of a New Year is a good time to begin a Petro Ninja – Enlighten Geoscience Well of the Week series on the resurgence of a lithologic succession that used to dominate the western Canadian oil and gas industry. There are several ongoing examples of how carbonate reservoirs are resuming their prominence in our imaginations. At this point it is important to note that, as illustrated by the AER Table of Formations, the Paleozoic of the WCSB is dominated by carbonate rocks (limestones and [Read more]
Well of the Week – Christmas special
It was -30C as I clicked on the “Submit for Review” button for what I thought would be the last Petro Ninja – Enlighten Geoscience Well of the Week for 2022. I was now ready to focus on Christmas preparations. And my mind went back to the one time I had well call on a very cold Christmas Day. We were drilling a horizontal in the Glenburn Unit in North Dakota. While it seemed hard to pull myself away from family time to take the phone call, I could tell that it was even harder for the people [Read more]
Well of the Week – Wells that make you go “Hmmm” No V
This is the time of year to wrap up a lot of packages and tie them up with a bow. That includes Christmas gifts and this Petro Ninja – Enlighten Geoscience Well of the Week series looking at .Manitoba. Previous articles looked at the first oil well in the province, more recent discoveries and where the furthest east oil well lay in comparison to the rest of the WCSB. Now to complete the package by looking at one last, seemingly insignificant, well. The core from the 100/11-15-012-29W1/00 [Read more]
Well of the Week – Furthest east oilwell in WCSB
Earlier in this Petro Ninja – Enlighten Geoscience Well of the Week series on the petroleum geology of Manitoba we learned that the oil industry made its initial Manitoba discovery soon after Leduc No. 1. Exploration success continued into this millennium at a stratigraphic level just slightly older than Manitoba’s overwhelmingly Mississippian aged production. What else can we discover about this somewhat neglected portion of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin? There is a lot of focus on [Read more]
Well of the Week – Hiding behind a thin veneer
Please allow me a bit of a diversion before we dive into this Petro Ninja – Enlighten Geoscience Well of the Week. The Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists is holding its Annual General Meeting on Thursday December 8, 2022. This meeting is particularly important due to a request for the members to vote on a Special Resolution to change the CSPG’s name to the Canadian Energy Geoscience Association. After almost five decades of existence, the Alberta Society of Petroleum Geologists [Read more]
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