Assets
East
Ventura Basin
- Tapia Canyon Oil Field
- Eureka Canyon Oil Field
Tapia Canyon
The Tapia Canyon field covers an area of approximately 280 acres located about
40 miles north of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and one mile south of the
town of Castaic, which lies on interstate 5. The area is rich in hydrocarbons;
the crude oils are predominantly heavy with a high viscosity. Texaco found oil
in the area in 1954, but the Tapia Canyon field was not discovered until 1957,
when Intex drilled the Yule No. 2 well. This well tested at 120 barrels of oil
per day of 18 degree API oil. The field commenced production in August 1957.
The field has had a number of owners including Tenneco. Tenneco studied the
possibility of steam injection in March 1986, found the reservoir to be suitable
and the economics to be attractive. However, early 1986 was a period of sharply
falling oil prices and Tenneco disposed of its interest without implementing the
process. At the time of the Tenneco study, there were thirteen producing wells,
seven non producing wells, and one water disposal well.
The owner and operator of the field prior to
Sefton’s involvement brought half of the available wells back into production.
Since January 1, 2002, wells on the field have been worked over or re-completed
as needed. A limiting factor on increasing the oil production rate in recent
years has been water disposal, as the disposal well was unable to handle large
quantities of water. Sefton has drilled a new disposal well to expand the
capacity of the water disposal system, which is now functioning above management
expectations.
Since
inception, oil has been produced from the Tapia Canyon field by natural
depletion, and conventional pumping, augmented by a small natural water drive,
and the cumulative recovery percentage, currently is about 14% of oil in place.
This will not increase significantly unless improved recovery methods, such as
the Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD or “sag-dee’) are used.
Oil produced at Tapia is moderately heavy, about 18 degrees API, and asphaltic.
As such, its use is mainly for road surfacing, and to a lesser degree, fuel oil.
When pricing our oil, the dollar amount for Wilmington 17 crude is used, with a
slight upward allowance for our 18-degree oil. The Directors believe that the
oil field is geographically well placed for its produIn late 2002, a drilling program was initiated, and the first wellI in late 2002, a
drilling program was initiated, and the first well, although drilled to the Yule
Oil Sand, blew out prior to completion of the well.
The gas encountered in this blow-out is more substantial than originally
estimated and currently Sefton is determining the extent of this deposit as it
drill and develops the underlying oil zone. the underThis gas will affect the economics of the field in so far as gas is used to heat
water in generating steam, in order to stimulate the heavy oil zone.
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Eureka Canyon
Eureka
Canyon Oilfield is located approximately 20 miles west of Tapia Canyon Oil
Field, in Ventura County, California. The field was discovered in 1893.
The field has been producing since its discovery. California DOG records (from
1917) show the field produced 764,000 barrels of oil to 7-1-93. It has been
estimated the field produced about 320,000 barrels of oil from 1893 to 1917,
with an estimated cumulative oil production of approximately 1,084,000 barrels
of oil to July 1993. The field produced 41,647 bbl from July 93 to March 31,
2002. Cumulative production to 3-31-02 is estimated to be 1,125,000 bbl. 53,000
mcf of gas is reported to have been produced in the past from the producing
intervals. This gas was vented or flared. Average oil gravity is approximately
26º API.
Areal extent of the field has not been defined to date. The lease is composed of
approximately 1550 gross acres, with about 50 acres in the western portion of
the lease known productive at this time. Additional drilling will be required to
fully define the productive limits and field boundaries. The existing producing
oil wells were drilled and completed in the 1970’s and 80’s. All production at
Eureka Canyon to date has been from sands above 2000 feet.
Current plans call for additional geochemical field work to complete the 2007
survey, drilling of two development wells and determining the viability of
drilling a Wildcat on one or more geochemical survey anomalies.
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