Montana Oil And Mining Journal

BANNATYNE'S HISTORY STORY OF UPS AND DOWNS

Got Off To Inauspicious Start When Eager Reporter Tipped Off Location Of First Well

Bannatyne oil field, which this week steps back into the producing column, was the one field in Montana that was hit hard by the depression and it has been virtually shut down ever since the stock market crash of 1929.

Bannatyne was discovered in the fall of 1926 by Genou Oil Company when Ralph Arnold undertook his five-well program in the Sweetgrass Arch, E. Byers Emrick Company.

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Bannatyne History (Continued from Page One)

Emrick undertook to find structure in the vicinity of Genou where Guy Craig, veteran operator, felt confident an oil field would be found. Emrick "turned down" the Genou area and decided, with Arnold, to make careful examination of exposures along the Teton river.

He followed the river to a point near the famous old Bannatyne farm, where he found reversal: a point near the strata starts dipping westward.

He began intensive work in this region and in the face of negative reports by practically all other geologists, spotted a test well.

Guy Craig and associates had organized Genou Oil & Gas Company, expecting that they would drill at Genou, but took over the newly found structure, which was called Bannatyne.

An enthusiastic newspaper man in Great Falls "scooped" the world on the Bannatyne situation and caused consternation by publishing the location of the well before the Arnold organization could get the leases in shape. A group of royalty buyers came to the rescue and assisted in financing the purchase of approximately 2,000 acres of land in fee simple on and around the location selected. Genou Oil & Gas company drilled the well and found oil on July 1, 1926. The field was brought into commercial production a few weeks later.

Expected to be another Kevin-Sunburst, Bannatyne field was prospected over an area of 100,000 acres but dry holes reduced its probable producing area to little more than three sections.

It has an 80-foot sand which is 60 per cent saturated. The producing sand, at around 1500 feet, is known as the Emrick sand. It is the principal sand of the Ellis formation. Subsequent drilling in the lower Sweetgrass Arch has revealed the presence of Quadrant formation in this region so there is some doubt whether any well in Bannatyne has been drilled to the Madison contact, although wells north of the field picked up the water strata generally associated with the Madison lime.

An unexplained phenomena of Bannatyne field is the fact that wells on the north slope produce a different quality of oil than the wells on the south slope. It is believed that there is a fault running through the structure which has interrupted migration. Wells 20 feet down the