Your point is duly noted - but again the Swan Hills reef is NOT anything like the Bakken or Cardium.
Both the Bakken and Cardium regional plays were known to be oil bearing but of low natural permeability over a much wider geographical extent than the developed pool boundaries for most of the past 50-60 years and vertical wells continue to be drilled looking for sweet spots that may have been missed - but for most of their respective geographical extent there are no shortages of wellbore penetrations (especially the Cardium). The advent of horizontal drilling and latterly of MSF Hz well exploitation has allowed the production of economically (?) viable reserves from these more "hamburger" regions.
The Sawn Hills reef is a horse of an entirely different colour and character. As I posted before you are either in the reef or you are not. If you are not in the reef you have nothing at all and you can go from full reefal buildup to open marine shale over a distance of mere metres.
If you are in the reef there are lagoonal muds behind the main reef edge environment and these muds have calibration quality 0% porosity limestone - again with nil reservoir quality. Here and there there are little teaser stringers of lime sand splays from storm washing of the reef - or the occasional Amphipora (a kind of spaghetti like patch reef - or more properly reef mat - builder) rich layer with some trivial porosity and perhaps associated oil reserves. The transition from active reef edge - and the debris fans at the reef front - into these back reef lagoonal muds is still very abrupt - but not quite as abrupt as the seaward transition into open marine shale.
Where the reef edge exists the production is superb, where it is not - the production is almost nil. The reef edge of each buildup stage is like a crenulated ribbon wriggling sinuously through the region - but due to prevailing palaeowind directions from the north east there tends to be a more linear nw-se trending active reef edge margin on the main buildups - at least on a gross scale - with the more anastomosing or crenulated edges occuring in the more sheltered areas between the major reefal bulwarks. Again this edge has been very actively pursued for over 60 years now and the overall geometry of the reefal areas fairly well known and the edges well delineated by historical wells that fell off the edge into the open marine shale or stepped too far into the back reef lagoonal muds.
I was involved way back in the late 90's with a case where i helped (accurately) define the very narrow reef edge at Sakwatamau for someone to pursue horizontally - after several previous attempts had missed - so I know the play and how elusive the actual zones can be. I think at the time the operator was eventually successful in placing a "flat one" in the right place - but it is moot that the project ever recovered a fraction of the sunk capital used to define it?
Going back to the new Arcan Land block - it s in a quieter channel between main reef fronts - there are some possibilities for a very narrow wavy reef edge to be pursued through part of this acreage - but typically these porous ribbons will be from 100-200m across - probably less, some 20-30m thick and of course not as uniformly porous as the more high energy windward reef front zones tend to be with concomittant decreased potential reserves.
Just my 10 cents worth this morning. But the Swan Hills is not the Bakken or Cardium - the plays, in any system used to compare and contrast them, would appear as different as night and day - or chalk and cheese?!
GS
