Archive of Texas PTTC Workshops

New Resources from Old Fields: Revitalizing Gas Exploration and Production in the Gulf of Mexico Shelf Province

Thursday, September 26, 2002
Project funded by DOE-National Energy Technology Laboratory. Co-sponsored by PTTC Texas Region and the UT Bureau of Economic Geology.

Target Audience
This course targets reservoir and production engineers, development geoscientists, resource economists, project leaders and other personnel interested in gas resource identification, development, acquisitions, and divestitures in the Gulf of Mexico or similar clastic margin settings.

Course Description
In the shallow shelf in the Gulf of Mexico, 12.5 Tcf of gas is projected to remain recoverable less than 15,000 feet subsea. In addition, another 10.5 Tcf is projected to exist below 15,000 feet subsea. Bypassed and underproduced oil and gas are waiting to be tapped and developed in mature fields, and numerous new play types and traps exist that can contain significant undiscovered resources both shallow and at depth. The challenge is to recognize the traps and design an integrated approach capitalizing on the resources.

Practical techniques will be illustrated that have been used to identify untapped compartments in existing fields, as well as locate and define stratigraphic traps for exploitation. Seismic geomorphic, seismic attribute and sequence stratigraphic techniques for defining the structural and stratigraphic framework will be shown. We will discuss how to integrate the geologic framework and engineering data to understand production character, as well as illustrate the value of building a 3-D model and visualization of key reservoir intervals. Several successful new play types will be showcased, and some specific fields will be used to illustrate portfolio of opportunities.

Course instructors are BEG scientists Dr. Lesli J. Wood, Mark H. Holtz, and Michael V. De Angelo. This course is an outgrowth of the DOE-funded Secondary Gas Recovery Program.

Agenda
  • Building an integrated sequence framework for targeting E&P opportunities: Where are the opportunities and why are they there?
  • Play types: What exist in this setting and how do you recognize them?
  • Seismic attribute analysis and interpretation: What types of attributes work best and how do
  • Exercises: interpreting resource addition opportunities in seismic data.
  • Engineering new opportunities: applying reservoir engineering and production information to understand resource distribution and addition opportunities.
  • The process and value of reservoir modeling.
  • Exercises: mapping fluid compartments and targeting new opportunities.
  • Risk assessment and portfolio management.
  • New targets in the Gulf of Mexico shelf-bound Miocene and Pliocene.
  • Deep targets, deep opportunity.
For more information about this and other PTTC workshops, please contact Sigrid Clift at
512-471-0320 or e-mail sigrid.clift@beg.utexas.edu.