AAPG Bulletin, V. 84, No. 9 (September 2000), P. 1247-1273.

Advanced Reservoir Characterization to Evaluate Carbon Dioxide Flooding, Spraberry Trend, Midland Basin, Texas (E & P Notes)

©Copyright 2000. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
¹1511 18th Avenue East, Seattle, Washington 98112; e-mail: [email protected]
²New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, New Mexico 87801.
³Sandia National Laboratory Geophysics Department, MS 0750, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185.
Special thanks to the U.S. Department of Energy, National Petroleum Technology Office (Tulsa) for the cost-sharing support to make this field project possible. David S. Schechter (principal investigator) and John Lorenz guided the technical work. The work summarized in this report has benefited from the generous support of Arch Petroleum, Chevron, Marathon, Mobil, Petroglyph Operating Company, Pioneer Natural Resources, Texaco E&P, Union Pacific Resources, and The Wiser Oil Company. Geographix Inc. donated software used in reservoir characterization, and Schlumberger GeoQuest provided eclipse software for use in reservoir simulation.

ABSTRACT

The Spraberry trend area of west Texas, once known as the "largest uneconomical field in the world," contains as much as 10 billion bbl of original oil in place. These hydrocarbons are stratigraphically trapped in fine-grained, low-permeability, and naturally fractured siltstones and sandstones deposited in submarine fans of Permian age. Despite five decades of production, including several large-scale waterflood projects, recovery from the Spraberry rarely exceeds 8-12%. Lack of scientific attention since the 1960s has resulted in most core samples suffering deterioration and loss, hampering any application of new methods for reservoir analysis.