Long-discovered gas field starts in N. California's Eel River basin
Independent operators started gas sales in November 2003 in the Eel River basin in coastal northwestern California after redeveloping Grizzly Bluff gas field. It is the basin's first new development in almost 60 years.
Innex Energy LLC, Plano, Tex., started leasing and technical evaluation of 12 abandoned wells in 2000. The old wells defined the resource, but extensive evaluation and new insights were required before the potential became evident, said Innex president Jere Jay.
"The field amounted to an overlooked asset ready for production," said Jay. Placing the field on production required the directional drilling of a hole for a pipeline that was then pulled beneath the Eel River to connect to a nearby regional transmission line.
Zephyr discovered Grizzly Bluff in 1963, and Chevron in 1971 and ARCO in 1989-92 made other discoveries in the area.
Innex assembled the lease block and brought in Forexco Inc., Greensboro, NC, to operate the field.
Forexco drilled 10 new wells last year to exploit gas sands defined by the abandoned wildcats, including shallow gas sands found in 1989 in a project Jay originated while in ARCO's western district. The ARCO well originally tested 2 MMcfd at 3,800 ft. The wells drilled last year twin and offset 1960s wells that tested geopressured gas sands at 4,000-6,000 ft.
The producing formation is the Rio Dell formation of Pliocene age. Sands in the basin are generally shaly, thin bedded, deep marine sands.
Grizzly Bluff field is southeast of coastal Eureka, Calif., 220 miles north-northwest of San Francisco.
Bachman and Crouch pointed out that most of the Eel River basin is offshore and that the basin extends north to the southern Oregon shelf (OGJ, Dec. 14, 1987, p. 55).
