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GEOREF RECORD

Teapot Dome; past, present, and future

W. H. Curry
Teapot Dome; past, present, and future
AAPG Bulletin (May 1977) 61 (5): 671-697

Abstract

The Teapot Dome field is the 99th largest oil field in the United States with a proved reserve of 42,515,000 bbl, yet the field is sparsely drilled and underdeveloped. The writer credits Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 3 with 38 million bbl of future reserves. The long history of Teapot Dome since the early 1900s, sometimes turbulent, sometimes dormant, was marred by government scandal, akin to Watergate in notoriety, in the 1920s. Harry F. Sinclair's Mammoth Oil Company obtained leases from the Department of the Interior in a fraudulent manner which led to prison sentences for some of the principals. Oil production in the Teapot Dome field is from three formations-the shallow Shannon at depths of 400 to 1,000 ft (122 to 305 m); the Second Wall Creek member of the Frontier Formation at 2,500 to 3,000 ft (362 to 914 m); and the Tensleep Sandstone at 5,500 ft (1,676 m). The Second Wall Creek is the principal producing sandstone and has the greatest future production potential. Current production is small. As of December 1973, each of the 42 Navy wells averaged 4.4 b/d from the Shannon Sandstone, and 49 offset wells averaged 2.2 b/d each. In the Second Wall Creek, each of the 23 Navy wells averaged 10 b/d and 8 offset wells averaged 14.9 b/d each. Total daily production was 416 bbl and grand total for Teapot Dome through December 1975 was 7,762,709 bbl.


ISSN: 0149-1423
EISSN: 1558-9153
Coden: AABUD2
Serial Title: AAPG Bulletin
Serial Volume: 61
Serial Issue: 5
Title: Teapot Dome; past, present, and future
Author(s): Curry, W. H., Jr.
Pages: 671-697
Published: 197705
Text Language: English
Publisher: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Tulsa, OK, United States
References: 18
Accession Number: 1977-043689
Categories: Economic geology of energy sources
Document Type: Serial
Bibliographic Level: Analytic
Illustration Description: illus. incl. sketch maps
N43°10'00" - N43°30'00", W106°30'00" - W106°00'00"
Country of Publication: United States
Secondary Affiliation: GeoRef, Copyright 2019, American Geosciences Institute.
Update Code: 1977
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