Publication Date:
2005-05-01
Description:
The Permian basin of west Texas and southeast New Mexico remains an important oil-producing province, accounting for 17% of United States production (327 million bbl) in 2002. With a resource base of such size, increased understanding of reservoir geology and improved use of enhanced-recovery practices in the basin can have a substantial impact on United States oil production. Thirty-two oil plays covering both the Texas and New Mexico portions of the Permian basin were defined on the basis of reservoir stratigraphy, lithology, depositional environment, and structural and tectonic setting. One thousand three hundred and thirty-nine significant-sized reservoirs (cumulative production of 〉1 million bbl [1.59 × 105 m3] of oil through 2000) were assigned to a geologic play. Cumulative production from these reservoirs was 28.9 billion bbl (4.59 × 109 m3), or 95% of the basin's total. Examples of successful reservoir-development practices are listed by play because methods demonstrated to work well in one reservoir should be applicable to other reservoirs in the play. The Permian basin is dominantly a carbonate province. Carbonate reservoirs account for 75% of total oil production; clastics, 14%; mixed clastics and carbonates, 8%; and chert, 3%. The plays having the largest cumulative production are the Northwest shelf San Andres platform carbonate play (4.0 billion bbl; 6.31 × 108 m3), the Leonard restricted platform carbonate play (3.3 billion bbl; 5.25 × 108 m3), the Pennsylvanian and Lower Permian Horseshoe atoll carbonate play (2.7 billion bbl; 4.29 × 108 m3), and the San Andres platform carbonate play (2.2 billion bbl; 3.42 × 108 m3). The Permian system dominates production, accounting for 73% of cumulative production, followed by the Pennsylvanian (13%) and the Ordovician (6%). The estimated remaining reserves from that component of the resource base that is already discovered and producing is 3.25 billion bbl (5.17 × 108 m3). Shirley Dutton is a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology with research interests in sedimentology, reservoir characterization, sedimentary petrology, and clastic diagenesis. She received a B.A. degree from the University of Rochester and an M.A. degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, all in geology. She has been an AAPG Distinguished Lecturer.Eugene Kim is a specialist on North America gas supply. Prior to joining Wood Mackenzie, he was a research associate at the Bureau of Economic Geology, involved in play analysis, resource assessment, and reserve evaluation. He holds a B.S.E. degree in mineral and petroleum engineering from Seoul National University and an M.A. degree in energy and mineral resources and a Ph.D. in geological sciences, both from the University of Texas at Austin. Ron Broadhead received his B.S. degree in geology from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and his M.S. degree in geology from the University of Cincinnati. He worked for Cities Service Company in Oklahoma and has been with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology since 1981, where he is currently a principal petroleum geologist and adjunct faculty. Bill Raatz is a Permian basin sequence stratigrapher. Formerly, he worked on international exploration and Alaska development with Arco and Phillips and worked as a researcher and adjunct faculty with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and his M.S. and B.S. degrees from the University of Iowa, and he now serves on the AAPG Grants-in-Aid Committee. Caroline Breton is currently working as a research associate at the Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin. She graduated with a B.A. degree in geography from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000. Her research interests include Geographic Information Systems and cartography. Steve Ruppel is a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he specializes in the characterization of Paleozoic carbonate-reservoir successions. His current research is focused on identifying the stratigraphic and diagenetic controls of reservoir development in outcropping and subsurface Permian carbonates in the Permian basin. Charles Kerans has been a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology, the University of Texas at Austin, since 1985. His research emphasis is on the construction of sequence-stratigraphic frameworks for carbonate-reservoir characterization. He has been an AAPG Distinguished Lecturer and has won seven awards for best paper, including those from the Permian Basin Section–SEPM and the West Texas Geological Society, and the Pratt Memorial Award from AAPG.
Print ISSN:
0149-1423
Electronic ISSN:
1943-2674
Topics:
Geosciences
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