Prudhoe Bay Research Paper

The Prudhoe Bay oil field is situated on the Northern coast of Alaska, it is the largest oil field in the United States at 213,543 acres. It was first discovered by Arco on December 19, 1967, it produced oil at a maximum rate of 2,415 barrels per day at this time (http://doa.alaska.gov). This oil field has now been acquired by BP exploration and other companies also have a stake in it as well, such as Conoco Phillips Alaska and ExxonMobil. Prudhoe oil pool contains both oil and gas, it is estimated it contains ~25 billion barrels of oil and 46x10^12 cubic feet of gas, but only ~64% of that oil is able to be recovered, at 16 billion barrels. On the other hand there is only ~56% recoverable gas, at 26x10^12 cubic feet (https://en.wikipedia.org). Prudhoe Bay peaked in

The Sadlerochit Formation is Triassic-aged, and it consists of 300 to 600 feet of sandstone and conglomerate (Van Poolen, 1974). The Shublik Formation is also of a Triassic age and is home to many different rock types including mainly fine grained rocks, organic rich sandstones alongside muddy sandstones, mudstone, silty limestone and finally limestone (Parrish, 2001). The Sag River Formation is made up of 2 different rock types, first is a sandstone bed on a lower layer and is overlain by a shale bed higher up. The sandstone bed is a well-sorted fine grained rock and the siltstone is of the same nature as the sandstone just much finer grains, they were deposited within a barrier beach complex. This Sag River Formation is a continuous reservoir which extends across a large area of the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field. The sandstone member thickens from 20’ in the south to about 70’ in the north, and reservoir conditions improve toward the northeast (Jones, 1976). These beds are situated in an 4 way dipping anticline structure which forms the trap and seal for the oil and gas to accumulate in the reservoir rocks