SOCIETY OF PETRCLEUM ENGII’lEERSOF AIME 6200 North Central Expressway &%iR SPE 2562 Dallas, Texas 75206 THIS IS A PREPRINT --- SUBJECT TO CORRECTION Development of the Offshore East Wilmington Oil Field By Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/SPEATCE/proceedings-pdf/69FM/All-69FM/SPE-2562-MS/2069540/spe-2562-ms.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 John N. Truex and William J. Hunter, THUMBS Long Beach Co. @ Copyright 1969 American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, kc, This paper was prepared for the bbth Annual Fall Meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, to be held in Denver, Colo., Sept. 28-Ott. 1, 1969. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented, Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JCURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal provided agreement to give proper credit is made. 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. ABSTRACT 21 miles. The Ranger Petroleum Co., Well No. “Watson” 2, completed January 26, The East Wilmington Oil Field, 1932, for 150 barrels per day of 14 degree comprisinci approximately 5930 productive gravity oil was the first conntercialwell acres, is located just off-shore Long completed in the field. However, recog- Beach, California, and contains oil reserves nition and development of the Wilmington of approximately 800 million barrels. structure awaited the completion of It is being developed by THUMS Long General Petroleum Corporation, Well No. Beach Company as contractor for the ‘:Terminal!!1 , in December, 1936, for City of Long Beach, the Unit Operator. 1419 barrels per day of 20.5 degree gra- Development is from four, 10 acre, vity oil. Rapid development followed man-made islands and two on-shore this event, and prior to initial drilling locations. Approximately 575 wells in the Long Beach Unit in July, 1965, have been drilled to date, producing approximately 3500 wells had been drilled from eight zones. Cumulative oil and had produced about one billion barrels production as of June 30, 1969 was of oil from 7825 acres. 93,485,157 barrels. Subsidence began in the center of HISTORICAL BACKGROUND the field shortly after iiiceptiofiof production, and rapidly became a major The East Wilmington oil field is problem. Pilot water injection was located in the south central part of initiated in Fault Block VB in the Upper the Los Angeles basin, on the south- Terminal zone in June, 1953, and was easterly plunge of the Wilmington quickly extended to other zones and fault anticline (Plate 1), The Wilmington blocks. In 1956, the City of Long Beach oil field overlies a basement high prohibited drilling east of Pine Avenue that extends in a southeasterly direct- until the subsidence was controlled, the ion from Torrance oil field to Hunt- excluded area including all the present ington Beach oil field, a distance of Long Beach Unit, exclusive of Tract 2. The success of the early pilot floods, References and illustratlons at both in the local arresting of subsidence end of paper. and in secondary recovery, led to the creation of four fault block Unit Agree- The Long Beach Unit contains 6700 acres ments between January, 1959 and April, of which approximately 5930 are productive. 1964, providing for water injection in The Unit is divided into: Tract 1, the the various zonesl. This injection Long Beach Tideland area; Tract 2, the program has successfully arrested sub- Alamitos Beach State Park; and Tracts 3 to sidence in the older Wilmington area. 91, the townlot area. The total Unit is now estimated to contain approximately 870 The City of Long Beach conducted million barrels of recoverable oil. an off-shore seismic survey in 1954, extending southeasterly from the then STRUCTURE legal limit of production at the Parcel A boundary. This survey estab- The broad Wilmington anticline plunges lished the southeasterly continuation southeasterly across the entire Long Beach of the Wilmington anticline for at Unit. In the vicinity of islands Bravo Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/SPEATCE/proceedings-pdf/69FM/All-69FM/SPE-2562-MS/2069540/spe-2562-ms.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 least four miles to the Orange County and Delta, the Junipero and Long Beach Unit line. faults produce local flattening of dip and change of strike, but the regional plunge The voters of the City of Long is uninterrupted (Plates 2 and 3). The Beach lifted the ban on off-shore anticline is asynlnetricai, with beds on K-kwtawv 27, +ha en~~~ f?~~~ ~innin drilling by referendum m rculualy bllG au .Vy.m.g = steeply as 60 1962. Shortly thereafter, the City degrees, while the maximum dip on the north of Long Beach drilled eight off-shore flank is about 20 degrees. Below the top core holes to verify the structure and of the Ranger zone, the axial plane of the the productive limits of the different anticline shows little or no migration zones. Based on the results of these with depth. core holes, the Department of Oil Properties staff reinterpreted the At least eleven faults with displace- seismic survey, and originated a com- ments in excess of 40 feet have been prehensive study for the development recognized in the Long Beach Unit. The and exploitation of the off-shore area. largest of these and the largest in the entire Wilmington field is the Long Beach In early 1964, the City of Long Unit fault with a displacement of 100 feet Beach, the upland property owners and on the north flank, increasing to about the townlot operators concluded a Unit 600 feet on the south. Approximately 2000 Agreement for the operation of the feet of right lateral movem nt is found on eastern area. A Field Contractor’s this fault. Moody and Hill!!describe the Agreement was prepared, under which the Wilmington anticline as a second order drillin~ and production operations would drag fold resulting from movement on the be carried out for the Unit under City Inglewood fault zone. The average strike direction. After extensive hearings, and the right lateral movement of the Long the California State Lands Commission Beach Unit fault conform to Moody and approved both the Unit Agreement and Hills’ definition of a second order wrench the Field Contractor’s Agreement late in fault. 1964. Bids were called for by the City in early 1965 to select the Field Con- All Wilmington field faults are of tractor for the Unit. THUMS Long Beach the normal or wrench type, cutting the Company was the successful bidder, axis of the anticline at angles of 30 to offering 95.56 per cent of the net 45 degrees, with the strike usually being profits plus a ten million dollar bonus, found in the NW-SE quadrants. 17 million dollars in advance royalty payments in the first year, and one A major change in oil-water contacts million dollars a month thereafter until of all zones is found across the Long Beach payout. The Field Contractor receives Unit fault, and minor to major changes are three per cent of Unit expenses as over- associated with the other recognized head. THUMS was a newly created company faults. Detailed interpretation of the owned equally by Texaco Incorporated, faulting east of the Belmont B-1 fault Humble Oil and Refining Company, Union and north of the C-608 fault has not been Oil Company, Mobil Oil Corporation, and satisfactorily resolved. Significant Shell Oil Company. The first well in differences in the Tar, Ranger, and Upper the new unit, J-145, was completed from Terminal zone limits are known in this PierJ in August, 1965. This well has area, apparently related to faulting of subsequently produced 849,000 barrels of such small displacement as to be unrecog- oil. nizable in electric log correlation of the ;PE-2562 JOHN N. TRUEX and IILLIAM J. HUNTER 2 highly directional wells. of marly shell up to one foot thick. Middle of interval never completely STRATIGRAPHY oil saturated. (4) Lower Terminal zone, 750-800 feet The age of the producing formations thick, Delmontian in age. Sands are found within the Long Beach Unit ranges similar to the Upper Terminal, but from questionable Jurassic for the somewhat coarser and more massive, Catalina schist basement to Lower becoming firmer in the lower portion. e.--.!+..KIS L Pliocene, Repetto, for the Tar zone. ur-ey w UIaCh, wallWGI , +ndliva+cad,ll-W,----- <hal@s-------- A hiatus exists between the lower 237 and siltstones, with occasional marly zone and the schist. Some middle shells. Miocene sediments may be found between (5) Union Pacific zone and (6) Ford zone, the lower Mohnian and basement, but 2000-2250 feet thfck, Upper Mohnian have not yet been positively identified. in age. Thin bedded to massive, fine- Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/SPEATCE/proceedings-pdf/69FM/All-69FM/SPE-2562-MS/2069540/spe-2562-ms.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 A major unconformity exists between the to coarse-grained, pebbly, fairly well middle and upper Miocene in the Los to poorly sorted, firm to easily Angeles basin. This unconformity friable, arkosic sands and sandstones, probably represents the time of initia- with hard, dense, dark grey to black tion of the ancestral Wilmington siltstones and shales.