Abstract

The Permian Basin of west Texas and southern New Mexico is one of the most important of the world’s petroleum producing provinces with 25 billion barrels of oil already produced and substantial reserves remaining. It produces from Permian sandstones and carbonates in the Central Basin Platform and the flanking Delaware and Midland basins. Important production is also found in the early Paleozoic rocks. A study of log bottom hole temperatures (BHT) from 70 oil tests located in the southern part of this province was undertaken. The object of this investigation was to estimate the temperature of the rocks in which the petroleum hydrocarbon formed and its influence on the generation, migration, and accumulation of oil and gas.

Thermal conductivities, data from heat flow measurements in the Permian Basin, and stratigraphic data are used to estimate the thermal conductivity structure of sections from both the Delaware Basin and Central Basin Platform. The surprising result is that the Central Basin Platform has an average heat flow which is 70% higher than that of the flanking basins (1.80 Mcal/ cm² sec vs 1.06-1.07 Mcal/cm^? sec).

The hypothesized thermal history of the region supports the theory that most of the oil of Central Basin Platform fields had its origin in the flanking basins and migrated into reservoirs on the platform. Time of this migration was likely during the late Paleozoic.