DATE ISSUED: Dec. 7, 2023

EFFECTIVE DATE: Dec. 10, 2023

The BC Energy Regulator (BCER) recently completed a project to match existing gas, hydrocarbon liquids, oil and water analyses to BCER-recognized formations.

Fluid analyses tell energy companies what fluids are in subsurface geological formations in a given area, which is useful for:

• Resource extraction – helps companies determine if a given resource is located there, if it’s economic to extract and how best to extract it. This applies to oil and gas as well as other potential resources, such as hydrogen, helium and geothermal.
• Storage/disposal potential – by knowing what fluids are in a formation, a company can determine if there will be compatibility issues between the existing reservoir fluids and the disposal/storage fluid (produced water, acid gas, carbon capture and storage).
• Safety – analyses determine the existence and concentration of hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) in a formation at a given depth and in a given area. H₂S is a toxic gas and it makes drilling operations safer to know at which depths it may be encountered. It’s also an input for calculation of the emergency planning zone (EPZ) for wells that contain H₂S.

Previously, many fluid analysis records had a null formation code due to limited available information on the well or sample. This project utilized a text matching algorithm to determine BCER-recognized formations from the formation comment text fields found in the fluid analysis reports.

To access this data, go to the Data Centre, search for “Drilling Data for All Wells in BC” and choose the files for gas, oil and water analysis. Note many samples, which previously showed a null area, formation and pool, will now have a non-null formation but will continue to have null area and pool.

Ongoing work and future projects will continue to populate our records, with the goal of a complete database of all fluid analyses.

If you have any questions regarding this Technical Update, please contact:

Logan Gray, P.Eng.

Reservoir Engineer

BC Energy Regulator

Logan.Gray@bc-er.ca

250-419-4465