The Offshore Secondary Gas Recovery (Offshore SGR) project was completed in 2002. Detailed architectural frameworks have been developed to model reservoir flow patterns and target bypassed zones. Stratigraphic and saddle-perched structural traps have been defined to extend traditional field boundaries and open up new targets. Stratal slicing (or proportional slicing) was used to create more coherent amplitude maps for initial identification of several low-sinuosity, high-amplitude features throughout the data volume. One of two prospect ideas developed by the team and successfully drilled by industry partner Texaco contained probable recoverable reserves of 5.7 Bcf.

Offshore SGR, a joint venture between the Bureau and the U.S. Department of Energy begun in 1998, was charged with identifying new technologies and processes to aid in the recovery of hydrocarbons from known fields. The completed project extended investigations into the northern, offshore Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Federal Outer Continental Shelf, where nearly 10,000 gas- and oil-producing reservoirs are found in more than 1,000 fields. The research focused on the Miocene-age reservoirs that comprise 42 percent of original proven reserves in the GOM. Because of the stratigraphic and structural complexity of the Tertiary-age section in this region, there is potential for significant gas resources to have been bypassed even in densely drilled fields.