AAPG ACE ‘15: Looking to the future with eyes on the past
DENVER, Colorado – Britain’s oldest onshore oil well posed as a welcome but unlikely subject at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists' annual conference and exhibition on Sunday afternoon.
On the conference’s opening day, delegates attended a varied series of mini-lectures exploring the history of petroleum geology, a fitting reminder for an industry which is always looking to the future.
Jonathan Craig, of Eni, recounted the storied history of Hardstoft -1, which, while not exactly a rival for Colonel Drake’s discovery in Pennsylvania, plays an important part in the UK’s hydrocarbon history.
The decision by Winston Churchill, who was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, to switch the Royal Navy from coal—a resource the UK had in abundance—to oil—of which the nation had no known indigenous resources at the time—forced the island nation to depend on imports for its naval fleet, Craig explained.
“Britain would have to rely entirely on imported foreign oil supplies, mainly from her vast colonial Empire,” Craig said, adding that Burma—now Myanmar—Trinidad, and eventually Persia supplied the lion's share.
Churchill’s decision proved to be a mixed blessing, giving the ships greater efficiency, speed and range, Craig said. However, the outbreak of World War 1, with the threat of German submarines attacking UK-bound tankers, demonstrated the danger of relying on imports, prompting the government, in 1915, to commission a private company, S. Pearson and Sons, to search for oil in the UK.
The company identified three main regions as having potential for oil, and, after considerable debate, a decision was taken to drill eleven exploration wells—seven in Derbyshire, two in Staffordshire and two in Scotland.
The first drilling location, near a village called Hardstoft on the Chatsworth Estate, which was and is still owned by the Duke of Devonshire, proved to be the nation’s first successful exploration well—but only after it took three and a half years for all parties to agree to the contracts.
At that time, the UK, Craig noted, had no experience with drilling oil and gas wells; the equipment and more than 50 workers had to be brought in from the U.S. Hardstoft-1, which was drilled on the crest of Hardstoft Dome, struck oil on May 27, 1919, at a depth of 3,070 ft. First oil was reported on June 7.
Between June 1919 and December 1927, the well produced about 20,000 bbl of oil, representing an average production of about 6 bpd. The well flowed under its own pressure for the first four years before a pumpjack was installed in 1924.
By 1927, the wells production had fallen to such a level that it was no longer economical to sell its oil to the refinery, and the unrefined oil was instead used on the Chatsworth Estate, Craig said. The well was brought back into production in 1938 and by 1946 its total production amounted to about 30,000 bbl.
Despite the fact that two additional wells were drilled at the Hardstoft site, the drillers failed to achieve any additional oil production from the site. And while Hardstoft-1 didn’t transform the UK’s resource situation, the well could contain clues for the future.
The Hardstoft discovery “has recently assumed a whole new importance,” Craig said. The well, he said, is a “key data point in the tight oil and shale oil and shale gas plays of the carboniferous basins of northern England.”
The limestone shale penetrated by Hardstoft -1 is known today as the Bowland shale, the main shale exploration target in northern England, Craig added.
ACE 2015 is being held at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado, from May 31 to June 3.
