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SUMMARY UNIT operation of oil pools is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Its object is to procure more oil from each acre at less cost per barrel. Only through the operating of pools as single natural units can greatest use be made of the energy stored in the reservoir in producing oil. This energy once dissipated cannot be restored. Efficient development calls for a. careful prospecting of reservoir conditions in order to determine the best distribution and density of wells. Development plans must be subject to modification as new information is acquired. This cannot be done under divided competitive ownership. Best operation calls for the least consumption of reservoir energy per barrel of oil produced, the least possible wastage of gas, the recycling of excess gas or even the introduction of gas from extraneous sources, and freedom of choice in selecting wells for production and pressure maintenance. Gas should not be marketed until oil production has ceased to be profitable. These things cannot be accomplished under divided competitive ownership. Efforts toward unit development should be directed towards new areas rather than towards old fields. Legal recognition of acreage content as the basis of ownership and of reservoir energy as a common attribute of a pool to be used to a maximum in producing oil would remove the chief difficulties confronting unitisation efforts. It is believed that with these two points covered and a law requiring that drilling permits for wild-cat wells be granted only on unitised blocks, it would be feasible to leave the details of unit formation to the lease and royalty owners. Agreements might take many forms and yet serve the major purpose. Unitisation may be accomplished theoretically, either by voluntary agreement or under compulsory regulation. It is concluded that, from a practical standpoint, elements of compulsion are necessary. The advantages of unitisation to all interested parties, including the general public, and the intricacies, injustices, and wastefulness of current practices, are believed to justify and make feasible the necessary application of the police power to bring it about. INTRODUCTION The unit development of oilfields seeks increased recovery, lowered costs, and stabilised output through the application of advanced engineering principles. It is not an end in itself and only becomes a problem in pools of divided ownership. It recognises that the oil pool is the one economic unit given to the industry by nature and that to subdivide such a natural unit into competitive parts makes for reduced recovery, increased costs and leads to a chain of economic consequences adverse both to the industry and to the consuming public. Competition should operate between units and not between parts of a unit that by nature is indivisible.
- North America > United States > Texas (0.67)
- North America > United States > Oklahoma (0.47)
- North America > Canada > Alberta > Westlock County (0.24)
- North America > Canada > Alberta > Sturgeon County (0.24)
SCIENTIFIC unit control-is too vast a subject to deal with adequately in, the limited space permitted. It is proposed, therefore, to review the problems in very general terms,- and.to and. to indicate certain directions in which greater progress is necessary and on which discussion is desirable. In introducing the subject for discussion ~ it is first of all necessary to consider what terms we propose to use when we talk of unit development,; as there appears to be, both in discussion and in writings, a certain amount of latitude in terminology and nomenclature. Now, petroleum is widely disseminated in Nature in various forms, but it is only when it is concentrated in liquid or gaseous form that commercial exploitation is possible. A "concentration" of petroleum will therefore be referred to as denoting a commercial deposit of liquid petroleum or gas. Concentrations of petroleum have taken place during geological time in many different types of rock structure. It is not proposed to discuss the various types as the principles of scientific unit development apply to any concentration, however complicated its reservoir may be. The next factor to bear in mind is the nature of the openings in the reservoir rock in which the concentration has taken place. In this discussion we are not so, much concerned with the quantity of oil per unit volume of rock in the reservoir, in other words, the porosity, as with the permeability or facility of movement through the rock which we may term the "migration factor" of the unit. Finally, we come to the kernel of our problem, the fluid itself and the forces which control its concentration. Unit development of minerals is no new problem; in fact the general principles of, unit development have been handed down to us by mining engineers who have studied for many generations the winning of minerals of less elusive character than that of oil. Some twenty years ago I surveyed a barrier of coal, left on a boundary as a protection against the influx of water from old workings belonging to a neighbouring company, to ascertain whether it constituted a sufficient safeguard. Completing this work I remember saying what a waste it was, as the coal in that barrier happened to be as valuable as any in the mine. "Yes," said the manager, "if we could only have laid out a scheme for the whole mine at the commencement of our operations how small would be the underground loss." Little did I think then that twenty years later I should be discussing the same principles in connection with the production of oil. We read in petroleum industry journals that unit development is something new, but surely this is not a clear picture of the situation. In America, as in many of the smaller oil-producing regions such as Rumania and Trinidad, the multitudinous ownership of the mineral rights has permitted in the past little oppor tunity of unit development on
- North America > United States > Oklahoma (0.46)
- North America > Canada > Alberta (0.28)
- North America > United States > Texas (0.28)
- Geology > Mineral (0.65)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock (0.46)
- North America > United States > Oklahoma > Anadarko Basin > Oklahoma City Field (0.99)
- North America > United States > Texas > West Gulf Coast Tertiary Basin > Sugarland Field (0.94)
- North America > United States > Texas > West Gulf Coast Tertiary Basin > Cook Field (0.94)
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