Well of the Week Selects - Dingman#1 and Royalite #4

Summer is a great time for hiking in the mountains and to reminisce about the history of Foothills exploration in a Petro Ninja – Enlighten Geoscience Well of the Week series on this very elegant facet of our basin’s history. This week, the wells that started it all: Dingman No. 1 (100/14-06-020-02W5/00) and Royalite No. 4 (100/12-07-020-02W5/00). Excellent examples of a First Generation Foothills Play Type (Newson, 2001). These plays are typified by a single thrust imbricate. In addition to the excitement of finding oil at Royalite No 4, there was a blowout as the Paleozoic imbricate was penetrated. This must have been something to see since it was 5 years before blowout preventers were patented.

The history of these wells is fascinating and the impact of these discoveries on a much smaller Calgary (population ca. 43,000) is hard to overstate. A replica of the Dingman No 1 rig may be toured at Heritage Park.Readers in and around Calgary can meander around the Turner Valley area including a visit to the Turner Valley Gas Plant National & Provincial Historic Site to get a sense of the history. An interesting film may be watched here.