RE-DEVELOPMENT
HISTORY OF ROUND MOUNTAIN OILFIELD, CA
The Round Mountain Oilfield was originally discovered by Getty Oil Company of California in the early 1930s. The main producing zone was a world class sandstone with permeabilities far exceeding conventional sandstone. Oil production far exceeded expectation and field was fully developed in a relatively short period of time. However, shortly thereafter, the highly active aquifer encroached and oil production sharply dropped leading to the oilfield production with 99.5% water cut.
The sandstone formation was determined to be an excellent target for steamflood and with that goal in mind, the field was Unitized in early 90s. Steamflood activity started in late 90s that improved oil production to 90% water cut thereby resulting in significant oil rate increase.
Upon a successful steamflood development, other opportunities were identified in zones previously undeveloped by majors. Waterflood development was determined to be optimum recovery method of other zone.
The impressive re-development of the oilfield can be seen in the chart below:
