A Review of the Production Performance of Three Deep Miocene Oil Pools in the Los Angeles Basin

A review is presented of the production performance of the City zone of the Inglewood city pool, Potrero field; the Wardlow pool of the Long Beach field and the Santa Fe zone of the Santa Fe Springs field. Production is from thick sections of Miocene sands with air permeabilities from 10 to 100 md. The pools have produced at near capacity rates from early in their history; oil recovery to date has been primarily from pressure depletion. Maximum gas-oil ratios were reached at recoveries of 46 to 58 per cent of the gas originally in place and 6 to 10.5 per cent of the oil originally in place. Early oil rate vs oil recovery trends indicate 13.5 to 23 per cent ultimate oil recovery. The Wardlow pool is now producing primarily by gravity segregation and considerably higher ultimate oil recovery is foreseen than was indicated front earlier performance. From a depletion standpoint, the substantial oil recovery following maximum gas-oil is largely due to permeability and mobility ratio variation within the thick section. Introduction This paper presents a review of the production performance of three deep oil pools in the Los Angeles basin, Calif., which produce from thick sections of Miocene sand in the low permeability range. The pools are the City zone of the Inglewood city pool, Potrero field, the Wardlow pool of the Long Beach field, and the Santa Fe zone of the Santa Fe Springs field. The location of these pools within the basin is shown in Fig. 1. In reference to the central area of the city of Los Angeles, the Inglewood city pool is 8 miles to the southwest, the Wardlow pool 18 miles to the south, and the Santa Fe Springs field 12 miles to the southeast. This paper is in the nature of a case history of these pools with the purpose of (1)describing the accumulation, (2)reviewing the oil and gas production performance and the indicated oil recovery efficiency, and (3)comparing the behavior and recovery experience of the three accumulations.