The Judy Fieldgate System and Two-Phase Gathering

The history of Judy Creek, since its discovery in 1959, shows what can beaccomplished with planning, and with the use of up-to-date production facilities from the start of oilfield development. Imperial Oil Limited's advantageous acreage position undoubtedly helped the Judy Creek development, but it has become clear that planning, especiallypre-planning of unified production systems, can and should be done, regardlessof acreage distribution. This paper deals with the Judy satellite-central battery system, and itslater consolidation into the Fieldgate System, an innovation which has eliminated separate oil and gas gathering. Judy Creek Field and Reservoir The Judy Creek field (Figure 1) is located some 140 miles northwestof Edmonton, just south of the Swan Hills field. The country is very hilly, heavily timbered and similar to the foothills. The field outlines of the Judy Creek and Judy West fields, with 230 wells on 160-acre spacing, are shown in Figure 2. The reservoir lies in the Swan Hills member of the Beaverhill Lakeformation. The top of the reef is found at average depths of 8,700 feet. Thereservoir is a self-contained structure with neither gas cap nor waterdrive. The rapid pressure decline early in its development prompted an immediateinvestigation into some form of pressure maintenance. The study indicated thata flank water injection scheme would increase recovery to 40 per cent. Asaresult, waterflood was in operation by December, 1962. Such a pressure maintenance scheme would cause considerable interleasemigration, leading to inequities among the various land owners. This could beavoided only through unitization, and the latter became effective for the Judy Creek field in November, 1962. Planning the Production Facilities Several months before the Judy Creek field was actually discovered, a modelstudy was set up to determine the kind of lease facilities necessary in a newoilfield. To add realism to the study, an actual area in which Imperial hadlarge holdings was chosen for detailed examination; it was a good prospect andwas being actively explored.