Developments in Wyoming and Idaho in 1952

Abstract

Exploratory drilling showed a moderate increase in the number of wells drilled and the total footage drilled during 1952, but the percentage of successful tests dropped sharply compared with 1951. The 238 wells drilled with a total footage of 1,107,993 feet represented an increase of 19 per cent in wells drilled and 6.6 per cent in footage drilled over the previous record year of 1951. In 1952, 37 successful exploratory wells were completed, the discovery rate being 15.5 per cent as compared with 21 per cent in 1951. In the new-field wildcat category, 12 of the 161 (7.4 per cent) were successful. Five of the 12 new fields were on anticlines in the deeper parts of the basins. Significant discoveries included Five-Mile and Fourteen-Mile in the Big Horn Basin, Middle Mountai in Green River Basin, and Ash Creek in Powder River Basin as new fields, and new pools at Happy Springs, West Sussex, West Salt Creek, and Clareton. Significant deeper-pool Tensleep discoveries were made at Sussex, Meadow Creek, and Teapot Dome. Seismic activity in Wyoming was 55 per cent greater than in 1951, with 2,012 crew-weeks. As in 1951, 65 per cent of the seismic effort was concentrated in the Powder River and Big Horn basins in Wyoming. Production, hampered by strikes in 1952, was 69,752,000 barrels of oil, only 1.1 per cent above the 1951 production. Cumulative oil production for Wyoming passed the one billion barrel mark in 1952. Gas production totaled 88,207,000 MCF, 6.7 per cent above 1951 production. Sulphur from processing of natural gas totaled 109,990 long tons, a slight decrease from 1951. Two dry holes drilled on surface structures were completed in southeastern Idaho in 1952.