Powell Park
Rio Blanco County, Colorado
Powell Park Prospect (PDF - 206KB)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Three Crown acreage in the Powell Park Prospect is being sold for $100 an acre with an 80% NRI. The term on the leases is five years with an option to renew for an additional three years. The prospect encompasses 853.6410 gross acres and 625.8003 net acres.
OVERVIEW
The Powell Park Field produced primarily from the Wasatch sands (400-2000 ft drilling depth) from wells drilled during the 1990's and early 2000's. The Ohio Creek Formation, (about 4,000 ft.) (between the Wasatch and the Williamsfork) produced a quarter of a billion cubic feet of gas over a five year period from the Phillips Mannell #1 well.
The Williamsfork section (6000-9000 ft) has not produced a significant amount of gas in this area, but the section looks much like the prolific wells to the south in Garfield County with respect to the number and thickness of the sands in the section. Exxon Mobil and XTO have development programs for the Williamsfork eight miles to the southwest. The Three Crown acreage would have this tight gas sand section under it.
In addition, the Powell Park Prospect has oil potential from deeper targets. The Mancos shale section was penetrated nearby by two wells, one of which was tested (the HD Lake #1) at around 11,000 ft. The Niobrara is currently producing from the Meeker #1-4 at about 8,000 ft. The Niobrara would be found in the Powell Park acreage at about 12,000 ft. The Dakota, a consistent target, was penetrated by the Mannell #1 well at about 14,000 ft. That well also penetrated the Weber Formation near its total depth of 17,033 ft. The Weber has produced 58,000 barrels of oil and 610 million cubic feet of gas 18 miles to the west from one well in the White River Field.
INTRODUCTION
The Three Crown Petroleum Powell Park Prospect is in the northern Piceance Basin, Rio Blanco County, Colorado, just west of the town of Meeker. The Piceance Basin has for a long time been known as an oil and gas producer, but in the last decade it has been the location of a tremendous explosion of drilling and production, primarily for gas from the Cretaceous Mesa Verde Group sands. Other target horizons include the shallow Wasatch, Fort Union and Ohio Creek sands above the Mesa Verde. There are also the "traditional" Rocky Mountain basins targets (going ever deeper) including but not limited to, the Niobrara, Dakota, ,Weber and Leadville Formations. An excellent review of the basin can be found in the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologist's publication, Piceance Basin 2003 Guidebook
The Three Crown Powell Park Prospect acreage position (figure 1) is located along the eastern rim of the Mesa Verde portion of the basin. This rim is marked at the surface by a feature called the Grand Hogback, which stretches from south of I-70 at New Castle to a few miles north of the Powell Park Field. This feature is where the Mesa Verde rocks were pushed up to the surface and stand almost vertically, although just a mile or so to the west they are essentially horizontal and deep enough to be targets for drilling.
The Powell Park Field has 11 shallow wells, with total depths (TD) less than 3000 ft. and 20 deeper wells. The deepest, the Phillips Mannell #1, was drilled in 1957 to 17,033 ft and tested the Weber Formation, which produces in the White River Field about 18.5 miles to the northwest. Ten of the wells have recorded production and several more have yielded hydrocarbons during testing. Some of those might have been commercial successes under different infrastructure, demand and price situations. There is much better infrastructure now.
GEOLOGY
The flow path of the White River (the river forms the southern boundary of the southern acreage) is influenced by a zone of weakness in the rocks below it. The tectonic forces that created the weak zone also created a geologic structure under the Powell Park Field, which trapped gas and oil in both conventional and unconventional (basin center gas) traps. The field has produced primarily from shallow (about 2000') Wasatch sands, but also tested and produced a small amont of gas and oil from the Mesa Verde sands. The faults related to the zone of weakness, along with the river, pass through the feature known as the Grand Hogback just to the east of the field (figure 2).
While the surface appearance of the hogback is created by nearly vertical beds of the Mesa Verde rocks, below and immediately to the east of the hogback are nearly horizontal beds of older rocks, such as the Niobrara and Dakota horizons. The Samson Meeker #1-4 well, located among the high dip hogback beds, has produced about 21,000 barrels of oil and 5.8 million cubic feet of gas (MMCFG) from Niobara carbonates since 2003.
The Powell Park Field had most of its production from the Wasatch sands, but there were several wells drilled through the Williamsfork formation, including five drilled by Petrohunter Operating during 2006 and 2007. Production has been established from the same interval to the south in Garfield County along the Colorado River and I-70. In Powell Park, at the time the deeper wells were drilled, the economics did not support the added cost of drilling and the shallow Wasatch became the primary producing horizon. One old (1957) well, the Phillips Mannell #1, produced about 250 MMCFG during the years 1961-1966 from the Ohio Creek Formation (about 4000' drilling depth).
Below the Mesa Verde Group sands, which are gas-prone with some oil and condensate, there is good possibility of oil from the Mancos, Niobrara, Dakota and Weber formations. The Mannell #1 and the HD Lake #1 wells (both about 2.5 miles west of the acreage) both penetrated the Mancos and had interesting log indications, while the Mannell #1 well also penetrated the Niobrara, Dakota and Weber, all of which gave some amount of log indication. The Mannell #1, which produced from the Ft. Union, had production tests in the Fort Union (7.8 MMCFG) Mesa Verde (10.0 MMCFG) and formation tests in the Mesa Verde and Meeker. It also has core from the Morrison. The HD Lake #1 had production tests in the Williamsfork (246 MCFG/day and 87 BO), Iles and Mancos (322 MCFG/day) formations and several formation tests.
RECENT ACTIVITY
Petrohunter Energy Corp drilled five wells through the Mesa Verde and Iles formations in 2006 and 2007. Their total depths ranged from 9,861 to 10,900 ft. The wells were suspended while plans were made to create a gathering system to bring the expected production to market immediately after the wells were completed. In the fall of 2008, three wells of the five were chosen and completion plans were put into place. The wells tested were the Lake 16-21, Lake 6-22 and Anderson 6-16. The tests were successful in that several zones of production were established, including some oil and condensate from the Iles sands, but all zones also produced a significant amount of water. Most of the results can be seen in a press release from Petrohunter at: http://www.petrohunter.com/release.php?id=36 The wells are currently suspended while the results are evaluated and funding is sought to continue.