Hugoton field in Kansas is the largest gas
field in North America, with cumulative production over 23 Tcf. Infill
and deep drilling activity over the last 10 yr have made it possible to
build an extensive database of modern wireline log and core data. Such
data formed the basis for a wide-ranging reservoir characterization done
to obtain critical information for optimum reservoir management of the
field. Reservoir heterogeneity and formation-evaluation problems made it
difficult to characterize fluid distribution, estimate gas in place, and
determine permeability from wireline log data, but few of the problems
in this reservoir characterization study are unique to Hugoton. The techniques
described here may be applicable to other reservoirs. Technologies employed
to solve the formation-evaluation and lateral-variability problems included
artificial neural networks, resistivity modeling, geostatistics, and three-dimensional
grid manipulation.
©Copyright
1997. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
1Manuscript
received April 29, 1996; revised manuscript received October 21, 1996;
final acceptance June 10, 1997.
2Amoco
Production Co., 1670 Broadway, Denver, Colorado 80202.
3Amoco
Production Co., 501 WestLake Park Blvd., Houston, Texas 77253. Current
address: Altura Energy Ltd., P.O. Box 4294, Houston, Texas 77210.
4Amoco
Production Co., 501 WestLake Park Blvd., Houston, Texas 77253.
5Amoco
Production Co., 4502 E. 41st St., Tulsa, Oklahoma 74102.
6Amoco
Production Co., 501 WestLake Park Blvd., Houston, Texas 77253. Current
address: PGS Reservoir, 10550 Richmond Ave., Houston, Texas 77042.
7Amoco
Production Co., 1670 Broadway, Denver, Colorado 80202. Current address:
Rocky Mountain Petrophysics, P.O. Box 470337, Aurora, Colorado 80047.
We
thank the Hugoton JOMT of Amoco Production Company for permission to publish
this study. We are grateful to Mobil Exploration and Production, U.S.,
especially W. H. Jamieson, Jr., for permission to use and publish additional
core and log data. We also thank David Reese from Amoco (Denver) for his
work on equations relating water saturation to permeability, porosity,
and height in the gas column. 3-D seismic interpretation by Mike Bahorich
(formerly with Amoco, currently with Apache) is appreciated. Thanks go
to Amoco operations and reservoir engineers too numerous to mention for
teamwork and testing of the ideas herein. Ann Pettit and Stefan Nowina
provided invaluable technical support. This paper benefited from constructive
reviews by Robert Raynolds, Joyce Budai, N. C. Wardlaw, Salman Bloch, and
Virginia Riggert.
*Tcf = trillion
cubic feet; Gcf = billion cubic feet.
