Development of the Turner Valley Gas and Oil Field

Abstract

Canada's oil production is obtained almost entirely from the Turner Valleygas and oil field, in the Province of Alberta. This field, about 30 milessouthwest of the city of Calgary and approximately 115 miles north of theUnited States border, supplied 92 per cent of production in Canada during 1937. In 1938 considerable development took place in this field and total productionfor the year amounted to 6,688,716 bbl., an increase of 3,922,146 bbl. over theproduction in 1937, which increased the percentage of production toapproximately 97 per cent of Canada's total. In the British Empire, Canada'sproduction is thus comparable to that of Bahrein Island and Burma, each ofwhich produced approximately 7,800,000 bbl. in 1937, being second to Trinidad'sproduction of 15,500,000 bbl. The total production of the British Empire inthat year amounted to 2.07 per cent of the world's total. History Development of the Turner Valley field commenced in 1913, when a well wasstarted near a gas seepage on the banks of the South Fork of Sheep River in thecentral part of the Valley. This well found small quantities of a light crudeoil in beds of Upper Cretaceous age and precipitated a wild boom in 1913–1914 which ended with the beginning of the Great War in 1914. A small amount ofdrilling was done in the years from 1914 to 1922 and a few wells found smallcrude-oil production in the upper sands. In 1922 a few wells were started, including the Royalite Oil Company's No. 4 well (R, Fig. l), which became the discovery well of naphtha production fromthe Paleozoic limestone. In October 1924, this well was completed at a depth of3740 ft., being approximately 300 ft. in the limestone, with an initial flow of600 bbl. of 72? A.P.I. gravity naphtha and 20,000 M cu. ft. of gas per day.Intense activity was not started until the latter part of 1928, when the OkaltaNo. 1 well (Q, Fig. 1) was drilled, with an initial production of 500 bbl. ofnaphtha per day. This well was only 1? miles from Royalite No. 4, but it wasapproximately 1300 ft. lower on structure and potentialities of the field wereconsiderably increased. T.P. 1099