Powder River Basin Wells

Figure 4: Map highlights Powder River Basin and area of study (source: Google Maps)

The Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming, near the town of Gillette, (see Fig. 4) is an area of very heavy oil and gas drilling. Below are the wells from one field (House Creek Field) in the area drilled in the last 40 years.

Figure 5: Google Earth view of wells associated with the House Creek oil field (source: WYOGCC)

Clearly, there is a very high density of wells in this area (and there are many more in surrounding fields not displayed). Additionally, these wells have been constantly pumped for the last 40 years as shown in the Fig 6. The monthly total production of this field is around 1 million barrels of oil, and we have highlighted the time period of our study.

Figure 6: Monthly cumulative production rates of all wells in the House Creek oil Field (source: WYOGCC)