Showing posts with label Savoy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Savoy. Show all posts

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Savoy's Oil Production in our Area

I tried to pull the public data on well production on the DEQ website at http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3311_4111_4231-98518--,00.html but it is not as easy as you would think. Data are stored as PRU (Production Reporting Unit) and have to be aligned to the well permit number, which could be easier, and is not always a 1:1 relationship, meaning a PRU can include several wells - and there is no convenient way to export the more than 2 months old data from the Online Data Base at http://ww2.deq.state.mi.us/mir/ so I had to write the numbers down. There is also a Microsoft Access data base that you can download but it is even more behind (lacks data for April and March 2013!). I finally managed to get these numbers:

First, Savoy is the 3rd largest exploiter of crude oil in Michigan at a 2013 total of 236606 barrels. The largest player is West Bay Explorations, which exploit the oil fields in the Irish Hills at 811494 barrels in 2013. Number 2 is Merit Energy at 457779 barrels. These numbers are from March 2013 though!

The below table is a small selection of the total oil production in our area. I just pulled the two wells closest to the City of Adrian and two wells more NW in Adrian township, and SE in Palmyra township. However, some wells in these areas are producing more, others less than the figures shown. The two selected locations are in no way representative for their areas.


Date Production in barrels

Heritage Park Witt Farm 60488 in Palmyra 60558 Pentecost Hwy
Feb-13 - 1697 150 2773
Mar-13 - 5628 108 4602
Apr-13 160 6162 101 3789
May-13 620 6050 91 3391























The oil companies have 45 days from the end of a month to report (yes, you heard right - they monitor how much they make themselves - there is no calibrated device that measures production) - then the overworked and understaffed DEQ has to compile and update the database - resulting in a time lag of currently more than 2 months. Therefore we do not have data on any newer wells yet - or more recent changes in production of present wells. Therefore there are no data yet on the wells on the Purse Funeral Home, Stratton's Landscaping, or the 1-3 wells off Carson Highway.


Thursday, June 13, 2013

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Information about Savoy Energy LP

I finally localized a little bit more information about our local oil developer Savoy.
The interesting WikiMarcellus Site lists the following (http://waytogoto.com/wiki/index.php/Savoy_Energy_LP):
Savoy Energy LP
Here is where some info about Savoy Energy LP
should go. This article is still a stub and needs your attention. It does
not have a template and contains minimal information. Please dive
in and help it grow!

Traverse City, Michigan-based Savoy Energy LP is an oil and gas exploration company that has drilled almost 300 wells since it was formed in 1989. It focuses primarily on the State of Michigan, but has also branched out to Oklahoma.

A news account in March, 2011 identified the Adrian Field in formerly non-producing Lenawee County, located in the southeast of Michigan's Lower Peninsula as one of Savoy's areas of operations. A #1-16 Ruesink well there flowed 250 bbl of 39 gravity oil and 95 Mcf of natural gas from a perforated interval between 3,722 ro 3,734 feet deep after being treated with acid. The pay interval was said to extend from close to the top of the Trenton at 3,238 feet to the base of the perforated interval in Black-River at 3,734 feet. The bottom-hole pressure was 1,538 psi.

Six additional wells in the field, #4-8 Ruesink, #2-16 Ruesink, #5-8 Ruesink, #1-17 Buehrer, #2-8 Goetz, and #3-8A Goetz, were collectively producing 1,000 bbl/d.
Tom Pangborn is Savoy's Chairman and CEO,
Bill Sperry is the company's President and General Counsel.
Cheryl DeYoung is Secretary, Treasurer., and Manager of Accounting.
Jack Rokos is Operations Manager.
Mike Flynn is Land Managefr.

Then on http://www.zoominfo.com/c/Savoy-Energy-L.P/356416753 I found a short profile with the actual but very cryptic website of Savoy at: http://www.savoyexp.com/

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Drilling of Pipeline under Beaver Creek Continues - New Drilling Site on Property of Stratton's Landscaping


After postponing the operations due to a soccer tournament (how nice of Savoy!), they continued to work on the pipeline today - and they started drilling for oil on the property of Stratton's Landscaping - as previously suspected by Victoria.


Large Drilling Derrick on Stratton's. Location of Site on Map Below.

 Today's investigational journalism got us a home visit of the state police. Savoy had the driveway down to the disc golf area blocked off. However, nobody stopped us from walking down there.



I approached the new construction site at the end of the buried pipes down at the disc golf area - and was approached by a nice young man from the construction company to whom I talked before. He told me that I should not approach the construction site any closer, which I respected. The reasons given were liability issues. I took some more pictures, Amy and I talked a little more with the guy, who threw sticks for our dog. On our way back to the car, I was approached by a gray-haired - casually dressed guy, who I have seen around the Heritage drilling site before. (Edit: Jack Rokos is Savoy's Operations Manager). He told me he was from the oil company and ordered me quite aggressively to stay away from "his" construction site and I assured him that we will do so - and that we obeyed before and did not approach the site closer than about 100-200 yards. By the way, there were also disc golfers down there that were not approached by the oil and construction staff - and were not any further away...I wonder why we get a special treatment???  



I tried to get some more information about the final drilling process to connect the pipelines and after confirming that drilling was done vertically and horizontally from up off Howell Highway and would reach exactly to the end of the buried pipes at the disc golf area, and that no clearing of the woods towards Beaver Creek would be necessary, he changed his mind and would not give out any other useful information. We assured him that we would stay away from the actual construction site and started walking down a beautiful, lush green path, that was heading towards the drilling noise from the new drilling site on Stratton's. The path did not really get us closer to make any pictures from public land and ended soon at a pretty deteriorated fence to private property, which we - as it is our principle - did not enter. During this walk in the woods we heart 2 bangs that sounded like small gas explosions (between 2 and 2:15 pm). In the favor of believing in the good of people, I was thinking that that's why we were asked to stay at a safe distance...


 We went back to the car to see that now 3 cars were blocking the driveway down to the disc golf and model plane area. We drove away and wanted to see if we could get a better shot of the drilling rig on Stratton's from the Skating compound, when we realized that one of the three cars was following us. We did a loop around the old farm building on Heritage and went behind the truck that probably was send to follow us? 



  We went across the street to the skating ring and I took a few pictures of the rig (see above), when we realized a state police car pulling into Heritage Park - sure enough - we soon had two friendly officers in our apartment hallway at home - that wanted to follow up with us what was going on - while assuring us that no complaints were filed. They stated that Savoy leased the City Parks and would therefore have the right to limit - or completely forbid access to a public park during its operations - or for a prolonged time. They also warned us that our friendly dog could get into trouble when approaching workers - which was surely not a problem with today's worker, who threw Faith's stick for her.

All-in-all I do not know what I should make out of this day's occurrences. I do certainly not believe that a lessee of mineral rights is authorized to shut down a public park - not even forbid access to areas beyond the immediate work area. As I stated before, I do not trespass on private property, especially if it is clearly marked as such - and I respected the "orders" of the worker and the oil company guy to stay at a save distance from the construction site, without the site being properly marked as such, or a clear statement in any ordinance stating to stay lets say 200 yards away from oil and gas operations...
I cannot shake the feeling off that Savoy - and a few beneficiaries of the oil boom in our city - are getting irritated and start to harass me and the investigational journalism that I try to develop. It began with the city police being called in when I showed a team of the Toledo Blade around. Again, we stayed off of clearly marked or obvious private properties - and no closeup pictures of persons were taken - beside mine, which I was OK with. I actually just received a harassing phone call of somebody, who obviously profits from the oil hysteria in Adrian - and did not like the pretty mallow article in the Toledo Blade...

If my humble careful writing and pictures are causing such inappropriate response - then there is maybe a reason why people get nervous - there is maybe really something they want to hide - and not bring to public notice?
Luckily, what I am doing is not depending on me alone and there are more people involved in this matter than can be easily threatened and silenced!


Location of the new drilling operation. I hope the pipeline from that well will not also cross Beaver Creek to reach Witt Farm

Current wells around Witt Farm - check them out on your own at:

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Pipeline Connected to Well Head in Heritage Park, Pipes all Under Ground Until Floodplain

The pipeline is now connected to the well head.



And all buried 4 feet under ground.


The pipes lying ready to be buried down at the floodplain are now also welded to the pipes coming down from the wells. Ground water level is still very high. Do they need to wait until the ground water retreats to bury the pipeline into the flood plain?




The long diagonal until the forest line shows a stack of 15 pipes. The 10 lower level pipes are most probable the ones to continue through the woods to Beaver Creek, and go under the creek bed - maybe even up the bluff to connect to the end of the buried pipes on the uplevel fields.

 This picture reveals the purpose of the black PE pipe. This is a gas pipe to transport the flare gases and vapors to the Witt Farm flare that will at least double by this. A shame that Savoy still does not collect, store and market these gases - but instead burns them off producing poisonous and cancerous gases and vapors.