Abstract: The South Copano Bay Field Aransas County, Texas

By

Leonard C. Bryant¹

An extensive province of Upper and Middle Frio production exists along the Gulf Coast of Texas, and in this province the Melbourne sand is one of the prime reservoirs for oil and gas.

Melbourne production in Matagorda and Calhoun Counties is trapped primarily in closures against the upthrown side of down-to-the-coast faults. In contrast, anticlinal closures, located on the downthrown side of down-to-the-coast faults, form the primary traps through Aransas, San Patricio and Nueces Counties.

A case history of the South Copano Bay field, illustrates basic exploration techniques that are useful in exploring for buried depositional type structures.

INTRODUCTION

The South Copano Bay field, located in Aransas and Refugio Counties, Texas, is an anticlinal feature traversed by depositional down-to-the-coast faults. Production has been established in Upper, Middle, and Lower Frio sands from five distinct fault blocks. Regionally the field is in a fairway of Melbourne production which the writer has traced from Wadsworth field in Matagorda County, south-, west to the West Corpus Christi Bay field in Nueces County, a distance of approximately one hundred and twenty five miles.

The Melbourne sand, better known as the "K-2" in the Corpus Christi area, is Oligocene (Nonion struma) in age and is considered to be the top of the Middle Frio section. This paper discusses 1) the relationship of South Copano Bay field to the Melbourne trend, 2) the history behind the fields discovery, and 3) early production history of the field.

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Footnotes