The history of Madison Group exploration and production in the North Dakota Williston Basin with an update on Madison Group source rocks

Abstract

The Williston Basin has proven to be a global super basin in terms of oil production and reserves (Sonnenberg, 2020). Although recent production in the basin has been dominated by the Middle Member of the Bakken Formation, the Madison Group has yielded over a billion barrels of oil since 1951. The Madison Group consists of the Charles, Mission Canyon, and Lodgepole formations with various members in each. These formations are found in both the United States and Canada and led Williston Basin production until 2008. As with many petroleum plays, the Williston Basin enticed oil men for many decades with the prospect of oil before finally yielding to success. Success, which is so often accompanied by a bit of good fortune, is a matter of finances, persistence, and technology, ultimately paving the way to successful commercial wells. Many factors contributed to the ongoing production results in the basin and include seismic, horizontal drilling, and completion technologies, and of course, good geological assessments. The history of production in the basin is also detailed by the history of petroleum geochemistry. Source rock and oil geochemistry progressed from scratch tests, test tube pyrolysis, and standard physicochemical properties, such as API gravity, to detailed chemical investigations including high resolution gas chromatography and biomarker analysis.