The Sediments Were Sampled 5

In 1987, all that began to change – so much so that, during the last 25 years, it simultaneously emerged as a standard production technique and revolutionized production. That change in thinking paved the way for a series of discoveries which represented the birth of the modern petroleum industry in Canada. This was an important example of thinking outside the box. In an email, my friend Clint Tippett asked whether GSC mapping of the Rockies west of Edmonton – work undertaken by Helen Belyea, Digby Maclaren and others – influenced Imperial’s thinking. However, his work greatly influenced that of his successor, Ted Link, who ultimately proved that Devonian reefs were an important key to Canada’s petroleum wealth. However, it is still only account for 13% of total energy use. As it turns lighter elements into heavier ones, fusion releases vast amounts of energy. Within a decade, the United States had made tentative steps toward a different kind of nuclear age – one based on nuclear fusion. One result is that many petroleum resources have become technology-driven plays.

Other oilmen at the time were on the hunt for big plays that looked, walked and talked like Turner Valley. Much fruitless drilling in the foothills sought the next Turner Valley. There are different types of facilities from which offshore drilling operations take place, such as bottom founded drilling rigs, combined drilling and production facilities and deepwater mobile offshore drilling units including semi-submersibles and drill ships. When a discovery is made, the oil companies are required to take their information before the AOGB at a public hearing. In the sector’s early years, important discoveries occurred almost independently of settlement, and a great deal of oil and gas development continues to take place in sparsely populated areas. Key discoveries and developments took place in remote regions. Briefly put, remote exploration has played a critical role in the industry’s development since the earliest years of oil and gas exploration in this country.

Armed with this knowledge, the company’s geologists – led by Ted Link, who by this time was in charge of Imperial’s exploration efforts – rethought their approach to Western Canada. Although Imperial is the hero of this drama, I understand that the company’s geologists mapped the Leduc reefs at a 90° angle to their actual orientation. Imperial Oil’s efforts were heroic – indeed the stuff of legend. However Imperial arrived at its revolutionary idea, the importance of its decision to drill for a reef cannot be understated. Perhaps we should not give all the credit to Imperial Oil for the geological idea that there might be Devonian reefs in Alberta. “AOSTRA’s staff had estimated that the recovery might be somewhere between 30 percent and 45 percent of the bitumen in place” during the Phase A tests, according to Stephenson. Using high pressure glass micromodels, a series of WAG tests have been conducted using equilibrated fluids, with high quality images of the oil recovery processes operating during alternate WAG cycles being recorded. “We actually got 65 percent recovery. Summary: The Norman Wells story illustrates a pattern that turns on its head the American model of petroleum industry development.

“Pairs of injection and production wells were drilled upwards from the well chambers at a 170 slant,” according to the mining engineer behind the project, Gerry Stephenson, “and deflected horizontally into the base of the reservoir. This kind of pumper will keep reports and make assessments of the volume and pressure of gas and oil contained inside of a well. This solution will go a long way in protecting their staff and the environment. Another is that reserves are way, way up. They may not look like much but they are very important. This system smashes together light atoms like those of hydrogen. “What makes horizontal drilling for nonconventional resources (like shale gas and tight oil) so attractive to the financial community is the very high initial rate of return. He threatened to block a plan to better protect the Polish and Baltic allies from Russia, NATO’s most obvious enemy, because he wanted NATO in return to designate the Kurdish YPG militia as a terrorist group. That news comes from George Murphy, group researcher for the Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices. U.S. production dipped only slightly in 2016 when prices bottomed out.