American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Inc.
Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines.
The pressure maintenance program by water injection in the Hemlock Reservoir of the McArthur River Field - Cook Inlet, Alaska - has been extremely successful. This is one of the largest offshore water injection projects in North America. Constant engineering study and surveillance coupled with an aggressive attitude on the part of the owners has resulted in a program which will maximize productivity and ultimate recovery from the reservoir.
The McArthur River Field is located about 70 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, in Cook Inlet (Fig. 1). The field was discovered in 1965 by the Union-Marathon Grayling Well No. 1-A. The field outline was subsequently delineated by ten additional exploratory wells drilled by four operators over a period of two years.
Current production is 104,000 BOPD from 49 wells which have been drilled from three platforms. Initial oil-in-place was in excess platforms. Initial oil-in-place was in excess of one billion barrels and cumulative production through June 1975 was about 250 production through June 1975 was about 250 million barrels.
The field was unitized as the Trading Bay Unit in August 1967 before development drilling operations had commenced. A unique feature of the Unit Agreement provided for equity redeterminations at specified intervals. This was a necessary and desirable vehicle to encourage unitization prior to development drilling and recognize subsequent data derived from development drilling. Union Oil Company of California is Unit Operator with Union, Marathon Oil Company and Atlantic Richfield Company as Suboperators for the three drilling and production platforms. The field has been effectively platforms. The field has been effectively engineered through the Unit Engineering and Planning Group which was formed in 1967 and has Planning Group which was formed in 1967 and has taken an active and continuing part in reservoir management throughout the life of the field. Engineering guidance led to the early installation of pressure maintenance facilities and to the installation and subsequent expansion of artificial lift on board the platforms. Engineering evaluation of the field-wide injection pressure maintenance project has been continuous pressure maintenance project has been continuous since its inception and engineering study led to the introduction in 1973 of an extremely successful infill drilling program which is still in progress.
