Geologic and Engineering Characterization of Turbidite Reservoirs, Ford Geraldine Unit, Bell Canyon Formation, West Texas

This report summarizes results of an integrated geological, geophysical, petrophysical, and engineering study of a representative Delaware Mountain Group field to identify constraints on producibility in the deep-water sandstone reservoir exhibiting low primary recovery efficiency. The Ramsey sandstone interval of the Bell Canyon Formation was characterized in the Ford Geraldine unit, Culberson and Reeves Counties, Texas, using data from outcrops, subsurface logs and cores, and a 3-D seismic survey. Facies relationships determined from depositional processes interpreted from outcrop analogs exposed in Culberson County suggest that the sandstones were deposited by turbidites in a basin-floor system of channels and levees having attached lobes. The depositional model developed from outcrop can be widely applied by operators to other reservoirs that produce from Delaware sandstone. The study was funded primarily by the U.S. Department of Energy and the State of Texas. Because reservoirs in deep-water sandstones of the Delaware Mountain Group in West Texas and New Mexico are characterized by low primary recovery efficiency (