Fiftieth Anniversary Of A Model Oil Field
Authors: Sellers P. Ben , Phillips R. Curtis 
Published: December 2007

Introduction

The Van Field observes its 50th birthday this October. During its lifetime it has produced more than 470,000,000 barrels of oil - only 23 fields in the United States have produced more. Van ranks as the 64th largest field in the U.S. with reserves of 49,000,000 barrels. Before the last well is abandoned, the field will have produced in excess of one half billion barrels of oil. The field's 50th anniversary seems an appropriate time to commemorate the discovery of this giant field, to highlight some of the history and events during its 50 years of production and to describe operational practices and programs which have contributed significantly to the field's performance.

DISCOVERY AND FIELD DEVELOPMENT

Pure Oil Company completed the discovery well, the Jarman No. 1, in eastern Van Zandt County, Texas, on October 12, 1929.Van is located in the Woodbine basin of East Texas, about 30 miles west of the city of Tyler as shown on Figure 1.As so often happens, Pure was not looking for the type of structure it found at Van when its geological department began exploring the area in early 1927. There, surface irregularities, and erratic dips in the land, coupled with distinct signs of surface faulting indicated that a salt column had pierced upward through the earth's rigid layers. pierced upward through the earth's rigid layers. Seismic studies detailed a gravity minimum located at the top of a large anticlinal structure cresting just north of Van. Shallow core tests drilled to the Nacatoch Sand found the presence of hydrocarbons, and confirmed the structure suggested by seismic work. The company assembled a lease block of 17,000 acres and spudded the Jarman No. 1 in July, 1929. When the well penetrated two oil bearing sands in the then relatively penetrated two oil bearing sands in the then relatively unknown Woodbine formation at 2700' and flowed at over 3500 BOPD, Van became a boom town overnight. The Pure Oil Company then announced that the companies holding leases within the area believed to be productive agreed to combine their properties and establish a joint account area with working interest ownership based on acre feet of Woodbine formation within the individual leases. The signing of the agreement took place just three days after the October 29th stock market crash that ushered in the worst and longest depression in American history. This pooling of interests represented a unique step in the pooling of interests represented a unique step in the oil industry at that time when Pure, which held most of the leases, was named operator of the joint account area encompassing 5800 acres to handle all development and production operations in the field. Under the orderly plan of development which followed, over 600 wells were drilled and the field's oil production was choked back in a day of wide-open production, which followed with the discovery in 1930 production, which followed with the discovery in 1930 of the East Texas Field, the flooding of the nation's oil market, and the resulting decline in oil prices. prices. The Van Joint Account is still in force today with Union Oil Company of California, the successor to Pure, as operator and owner of just under 77%. other participants are Shell, Texaco, Sun and Exxon, who all cooperated to the fullest extent in this early development which through the vision of concerned oilmen had its origin in Van. Today the Van Field produces 22,700 BOPD and has 337 active producing wells. Production is from the Woodbine formation of Upper Cretaceous age. The Woodbine is divided into upper Lewisville and lower Dexter sands. Figure 2 is a composite log showing the position and depths of these sands in the geologic column.