Gaines County, TX - Oil & Gas Discussion archives

Texas Mineral Rights Gaines County, TX
1084

AJ, I would think that Ring would be talking about drilling in San Andres ROZ areas if they were doing so. And with that thought in mind, I would expect that the production variability is tied to subsurface variability (reservoir quality, oil vs water saturation) as well as possible landing zone / completion / mechanical variability.

Without detailed awareness of the area plus some in depth mapping, one cannot know any better about what could be happening here. And I bet that Ring will not be talking about extreme variability in well performance.

A group that I know well has looked at the SA Hz play - their primary conclusion was that reservoir quality / fluid saturations is the key to this play and well performance. And that these SA parameters change very rapidly over short distances in the subsurface.

1085

Thank you, Rock Man. I am trying to get a better understanding of what is going on in Gaines county. This pdf indicates the "Tall Cotton" greenfield ROZ project is currently producing 70,000 bo per month and that it is expected to account for half of Kinder Morgan's oil production in ten years. This is from an area which never had any primary production and was consider goat pasture. Gaines is called ROZopolis in this pdf.

1086

Kinder Morgan's "Tall Cotton" greenfield ROZ CO2 flood produced 83,203 bo from less than one section of land in Dec 2017. To me this is amazing. The land never had any primary production and was considered dry hole territory ["goat pasture"] up until KM identified and developed it if I am not mistaken.

1087

The PDF and the Tall Cotton info is interesting to say the least. Still need to digest all of that PDF info the numbers are hard to ignore.

I dove into DrillingInfo.com - 59 wells drilled by Kinder Morgan in this one Section. The initial lease production for these wells when they started the project was only 60 BO per day for the entire set of wells. Now over 2400 BOPD with 2615 MCF per day (Feb 2018). See attached info from DI below.

Tall%20Cotton%20Map.pdf

Tall%20Cotton%20Well%20list.pdf

Tall%20Cotton%20Production%20Graph%20Lease%20Basis%20ALl%20wells.pdf

1088

Another comment on the PDF - Tall Cotton is not on the Central Basin Platform but instead is in the structurally low (present day) area known as the San Simeon Channel.

This is essentially a "fairway" or channel that connects the Delaware Basin to the Midland Basin. This channel complex was in place when the San Andres was formed - so the SA section was actually deposited in a deeper water system than up on the shallower CBP complex.

Interesting geologically as wells as with respect to reservoir charge and development.

See San Simeon Channel location on attached PDF. Very limited area.

San%20Simeon%20Channel.pdf

1089

AJ, did some digging into the Medusa and Minerva production and possible "why the difference" issues.

All this comes from Tx RRC site.

First, they are different lateral lengths and productive sections. Minerva is 7182' while Medusa is only 4975'. Over 44% more section completed in Minerva.

Despite the fact that these two wells are very close to one another, the TVD of the landing zones are different. Minerva lateral is @ 4905' to 4060' TVD.

Medusa lateral is higher in the section - 4787' to 4750'. This difference is critical as to oil saturations in the target intervals.

Lastly, there appears to be a difference in frac stimulation approach. I got into Frac Focus.org site where the details are located.

The longer lateral (Minerva) used only 1.47 million gallons of water (5 bbls water per foot) but 16.8% of the total frac volume (by weight) was proppant.

The shorter lateral (Medusa) used 2.6 million gallons of water (12 bbls water per foot) but only 5.5% of the total frac volume was proppant.at total volume.

Comparing production numbers only is not the way to compare / contrast wells and performance. This is multi dimensional chess with lots of moving parts and variances between wellbores.

For what ever reason, Ring did things differently on these two close proximity wells. Appears that they are still "searching" for the right recipe' in this area.

1090

Minerva lateral TVD is 4905' to 4960' - apologize for the type.

1091

That is fantastic information, Rock Man. I will have to carefully read and re-read your words on Ring's wells. Thank you. I want to be clear to all that I am not representing that 1/2 of Kinder Morgan's production in ten years will come from the one existing producing section. I think KM has eight or ten sections under lease. It's still very big business, though. Slide 56 of 429 in this pdf seems to suggest that Tall Cotton--at least the developed section--is on the CBP: "The #1 Keating is located on the northern edge of the Central Basin Platform, facing the George Allen Field across the San Simon Channel on the southern margin of the Northwest Shelf. Trinity, operator of the George Allen Field, has initiated a peripheral Greenfield ROZ flood initially recovering large volumes of water before recovering oil. 2.2.1.3 Kinder-Morgan’s Tall Cotton Project, a True Greenfield ROZ Kinder Morgan’s Tall Cotton Project, Gaines County, TX: The first true Greenfield project without an associated Main Payzone is offset one mile to the southeast to the #1 Keating and within the same section as the #1-427 Charlene..." It really doesn't mean much to me if it is on the CBP or in the San Simeon Channel, but I have not seen Tall Cotton placed in the San Simeon Channel on a map. There is a partitioned map of Gaines county in Slide 172 of 429, and Slide 182 of 429 has high oil in place estimates. How much if any of it is a CO2 cheer, I have no way of knowing. I am hoping economically viable ROZs are widespread in Gaines and elsewhere, but especially Gaines ;)

1092

A question about the rrc map legends. I am sorry if I missed this in some of the discussions, but I am not very knowledgeable about the oil industry. My sister and I have leased 280 acres and a lot of wells are heading in our direction. Many of the wells have the oil (green dot), but also several of the plugged oil (green dot with a green line through it). What does it mean when the oil is plugged? Appreciate all you are doing to keep people like me informed.

1093

Mike, a plugged oil well is a well that is no longer producing and has been cemented closed more or less.

1094

For those new to oilfield info, remember that not all wells are drilled to the same depth (total depth). So there may be potential horizons located deeper in the section below historical drilled wells.

The only way to determine the depth of historical wells is to dig into the individual well info (if available).

1095

Stopped by a friends house yesterday who is a taxidermist. One other guy was there waiting for his mount.

This guy was quite and reserved, had never seen him around Levelland, and that's unusual for a small oil town.

He is the foreman for OXY overseeing their west Texas project.

They are building a huge pipeline from Hobbs to Seminole, once that pipeline is complete, you will see OXY all over the place. They went in to co2/flood Wolfcamp, San Andres & another formation maybe Clearfork. That was it, they were going tertiary recovery

They need to hire the best to help them drill & complete the Shale Zones, ...several were around the Northeast quarter of the county, close to where the Adair Unit they bought from Amarada for $600,000,000.

Not much drilling is going on in that area right now, let's see what happens in two years

A guess..Amarada will go all in on their original co2/flood project for a long time before touching the shale in trying to figure out what they have and the best course of action in dealing with Shale formations. They have more diverse Shale formations than any other county I looked at.

>one shale formation that really intrigued me when I first saw it was the way it looked, strange (see a map). Looked a small river/creek starting in the Delaware Basin in eastern New Mex...then thru the Central Basin (directly thru Gaines Co.)..then thru the Midland Basin (Wolfcamp & Woodberry) and ends there. Not sure what its called

just read poster "AJ" excellent comment on this zone about two or three post done...it is fantastic. Do yourself a favor and check it out

Have no idea why such a small Shale zone would cause so much intrigue, everybody seems to be looking for it. In Gaines, Kinder Morgan- Tall Cotton field thought they had tapped into it. They were wrong, the zone is not there.

>there were this little red dotted zone( guessing 15) scattered thru out Gains, not in one centralized location but all over the section. In a few other sections.

>Gaines doesn't get much press on the Wolfcamp/Wolfberry(?) zone but that is why I got in. Amarada's largest USA drilling project in 1999 was developing the Wolfcamp & San Andres in about 4 sections surrounding the Adair Unit (northeast section of the county. The section of the map re WolfCamp Shale I looked at started around Crane ending in the a small strip in the northeast quarter. Didn't look that big and covered a small area of Gaines. (there maybe other Wolfcamp zones in other parts of the state, I didn't look).

>the portion of the Central Basin shale I looked at starts around Ozona runs north thru the Northeastern part of Gaines then does an immediate U-turn heading back toward Sterling City

>the Delaware Basin-Cherry Canyon overs a large portion of West Texas but mainly the south half of 13. Wonder if this is where a lot of the drilling from the mid-southern half?

Is a lot of the drilling from the mid to southern portion of the county coming from this portion of the Delaware Canyon?

more later on zones in both north & south..but most shale zones seem to be in the NorthEastern part of the county, somewhere near the Adair Unit area.

i'm a novice and going by maps I examine on the internet, so, i'm sure there are particulars I am missing...but I am in the ballpark

1096

FYI - that "small river / creek feature" that is in the AJ posting is not a shale play. It is the San Andres producing trend / San Andres is a carbonate (dolomite / LS) formation and conventional reservoir - total opposite to "shale play".

As AJ has noted in his postings, some very interesting things going on with the San Andres both with horizontal drilling as well as chasing ROZ targets. CO2 injection is a big part of the latter approach (as well as with secondary and tertiary recovery in non ROZ conventional plays).

PS note on NE Gaines County - there is low thermal maturity in that part of the basin. This will negatively impact any success in true "shale plays".

1097

You notation right here is interest: PS note on NE Gaines County - there is low thermal maturity in that part of the basin. This will negatively impact any success in true "shale plays"

Like I say I am a novice but doing my best to learn, seems like I have never heard anything negative about a "shale" play. It's always intrigued me but I have not studied it in detail it nor spent time spent figuring out the intricacies like you mentioned - "NE Gaines County - there is low thermal maturity in that part of the basin. This will negatively impact any success in true "shale plays",

Something else, I would have never guessed that small trend traveling thru at least three shale zones is a San Andres producing trend. It may have seemed like something normal to you but to me it was just odd, and the San Andres looked strange.

1098

The whole subsurface "state of affairs" with any prospective formation is ultra complicated. Especially in an area like the Permian Basin with all its complexities and intricacies.

Issues that impact "shale plays" (and technically these are not shales - but I won't go into that here) are thermal maturity, clay content (brittleness or lack there of), organic types (oil vs gas kerogen) and overall thickness of target intervals versus frac barriers and/or wet intervals. Then you tie in operator related issues such as picking the right landing zone, staying in that zone along the lateral length, getting a good cement job on casing in the lateral and then performing an effective frac along the entire lateral. And then drilling out those frac plugs and doing a good job producing the well over time.

The San Andres trend / existence is tied to the original deposition of that formation and subsequent O&G migration and charged of traps in that trend. This is a true conventional play that has been tapped since the early days of Permian Basin production. Today operators are trying to suck out more O&G from the San Andres via horizontal drilling and stimulation as well as chasing the ROZ interval in certain areas. There is also a lot of effort in the San Andres tied to secondary and tertiary recovery (using water and /or CO2 to help strip out more O&G).

As noted earlier, the Permian Basin is a very complicated playground.

1099

Michael Purify, Rock Man, et al, this is a nice article about Oxy CO2 activity in the Hobbs, NM area.

1100

MRF discussion on Clearfork "shale"

1101

AJ, good article on CO2 and OXY - thanks for posting that. The cost per BO for this approach was an interesting number. I wonder if that includes SWD and all other operating costs>

On to the Clearfork Shale item - Diamondback tried chasing that a few years ago in Andrews Co. Lots of science (core, high tech logs) plus drilled a couple of state of the art laterals.

Results were less than economic - just not enough oil in place in stimulated intervals to support horizontal drilling. But with higher prices, you never know if this play will become viable.

1102

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1103

Kelli, at one point in time your asking who Cimmeron was leasing for in Gaines County.

It was Tomahawk Oil Production out of Midland, they really pursued the 'shale'..including Eagle Ford & couple of other. Initially they were doing ok, then something went wrong then the filed bankruptcy around 1992...then reorganized and started over, not sure what there deal is now.

Evidently they were Leasing a lot in Gaines, not sure if in one sport but all over the place. I was told years ago when they were leasing was they thought they had located a 'shale play'. Not sure where, but they were leasing from me sec13,sec12 & sec7...which in the northeast portion of the County, near the Adair unit.

But he didn't specifically say they thought it was under my stuff, something I assumed. Could have been talking about other area of Gaines. Cannot remember the exact conversation but Sec.12 seem to be something special from what they were seeing.