Abstract

As with many basins in the U.S., the Paradox Basin of southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah has undergone sporadic exploration and development over the past century. It has benefited from continuously innovative technologies that have resulted in periodic bursts of economic successes. The earliest drilling at the beginning of the 20th century was prompted by the discovery of oil seeps, and although the production rates were dismally low, the activity focused attention on the hydrocarbon potential of some of the Pennsylvanian reservoirs. Exploratory drilling forty years later was confined to known surface structures, many of which produced natural gas, an often less than desirable hydrocarbon product due to low prices, low demand, and lack of gathering infrastructure. However, significant oil discoveries in the middle of the century from carbonate and clastic reservoirs of Devonian, Mississippian, and Pennsylvanian ages heralded the economic potential of the basin; development proceeded, with occasional lapses in drilling, throughout the remainder of the century and into the new millennium.