Application of Advanced Reservoir Characterization Simulation and Production Optimization Strategies to Maximize Recovery in Slope and Basin Clastic Reservoirs, West Texas (Delaware Basin)

The objective of this Class III project is to demonstrate that detailed reservoir characterization of elastic reservoirs in basinal sandstones of the Delaware Mountain Group in the Delaware Basin of West Texas and New Mexico is a cost-effective way to recover more of the original oil in place by strategic infill-well placement and geologically based field development. The study focused on Geraldine Ford field, which produces from the upper Bell Canyon Formation (Ramsey sandstone), and West Ford field, which produces from the upper Cherry Canyon and lower Bell Canyon Formations. Reservoirs in these and other Delaware Mountain Group fields have low producibility (average recovery <14 percent of the original oil in place) because of a high degree of vertical and lateral heterogeneity caused by depositional processes and post-depositional diagenetic modification.

Outcrop analogs were studied to better interpret the depositional processes that formed the reservoirs at Geraldine Ford and West Ford fields and to determine the dimensions of reservoir sandstone bodies. Stratigraphic relationships examined in laterally continuous outcrop exposures of upper Bell Canyon sandstones in Culberson County, Texas, indicate that the sandstones were deposited by high- and low-density turbidity currents in a basinal deep-water setting. The fundamental depositional element is the channel with attached levees and lobes. These elements appear to initially step into the basin, aggrade, then step back toward the shelf.