Petrel Robertson Consulting Ltd. was contracted by the Yukon Geological Survey through the Geological Survey of Canada (Natural Resources Canada) to undertake a quantitative petrophysical assessment of the petroleum exploration wells drilled in the Eagle Plain Basin of Yukon. The study was initiated to enhance the research of the Yukon Basins Project, a collaborative research effort among the Geological Survey of Canada, the Yukon Geological Survey and university partners, and funded by the Geo-Mapping for Energy and Minerals (GEM) 2008-2013 initiative. The purpose of the assessment was to highlight prospective conventional hydrocarbon accumulations, and generate input for use in future resource assessments.
More than 60 000 m of strata were analyzed in the study. Based on three sets of cutoff criteria, reservoir and pay intervals were identified. The results identify hydrocarbons in 19 stratigraphic intervals, in 29 of the 31 wells analyzed. The best conventional hydrocarbon potential, assessed by net pay thickness, proportion of total net pay, proportion of net pay to formation/member thickness, and proportion of reservoir rock filled with net pay, was identified in the Carboniferous stable platform tectonostratigraphic succession followed in order by a Lower Paleozoic platform carbonate horizon and Permian sedimentary rocks of the Ancestral Aklavik Arch. Less prospective are the Jurassic-Cretaceous Cordilleran and Devonian-Carboniferous Ellesmerian orogenic successions.