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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

GCAGS Transactions

Abstract


Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions
Vol. 31 (1981), Pages 19-30

Waveland Field: An Analyses of Facies, Diagenesis, and Hydrodynamics in the Mooringsport Reservoirs

Lawrence R. Baria (1)

ABSTRACT

Although Waveland field was discovered in 1965, only in the last few years has development changed this once insignificant field into a 24,000-acre producing area flowing nearly 4 billion cubic feet of gas per month. Part of the reason for the field's unusual growth rate is found in a host of reservoir disguises related to carbonate facies, diagenesis, and fracturing.

All of the field wells to date have penetrated a uniform sequence of back-reef and lagoonal deposits in the Mooringsport (Lower Albian) producing interval. Miliolid and pellet packstones, mollusk and echinoid mudstones, and orbitolinid packstones and grainstones make up this sequence. The producible reservoir beds are curiously correlative only to the orbitolinid facies, despite the fact that log analyses and standard core analyses do not discriminate between facies with regard to reservoir properties.

Petrographic studies and special core analyses have identified a unique style of diagenetic recrystallization which yields water-free gas production from these high water saturation reservoirs. However, in updip portions of the field where porosity and permeability have been enhanced by solution diagenesis, both gas and water are produced in subeconomical proportions.

The complex association of a discretely layered reservoir, which demonstrates untraditional fluid dynamics within layers, is further complicated by a dual system of vertical fractures. This fracture system, which is probably a function of gulfward subsidence coincident with drape across the Hancock ridge, has been demonstrated to be an important factor controlling the prolonged and prolific production at Waveland field.


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