Oklahoma City Oil Field, Oklahoma

Abstract

The Oklahoma City oil field, just outside the southeastern limits of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was discovered on December 4, 1928, by the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company and Foster Petroleum Corporation with their Oklahoma City No. 1, center SE. ¼, SE. ¼, Sec. 24, T. 11 N., R. 3 W., at a total depth of 6,402 feet. The field is on a faulted anticline in which formations ranging from Mayes limestone of Mississippian age to Arbuckle limestone of Cambro-Ordovician age have been folded, truncated, faulted by one major fault, and then buried under Cherokee shale and succeeding beds of Pennsylvanian and Permian age. The oil (38°-40° Be. gravity) occurs in thin rich pay zones ranging from 200 to 500 feet below the top of the Arbuckle limestone, which s directly beneath the Cherokee shale at the highest part of the structure, and in sandstones of the Simpson formation which flank the Arbuckle. Shallower sands in the Pennsylvanian having showings of oil and gas have not yet been tested. The initial oil production of the wells ranges from 1,000 to 43,000 barrels and the maximum gas volume is 150,000,000 cubic feet per day. By March 10, 1930, there were 135 completed oil wells and 173 drilling wells or locations in the field. The total production at that date was estimated at 14,500,000 barrels. The potential production of the field was 870,000 barrels. Almost from its beginning the field has been radically prorated.