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 slope and basin elastic reservoirs in sandstones of the Delaware Mountain Group in the Delaware Basin of West Texas and New Mexico is a cost-effective way to recover a higher percentage of the original oil in place through geologically based field development. This year, the project focused on reservoir characterization of the East Ford unit, a representative Delaware Mountain Group field that produces from the upper Bell Canyon Formation (Ramsey Sandstone). The field, discovered in 1960, is operated by Orla Petco, Inc., as the East Ford unit and contained an estimated 19.8 million barrels (MMbbl) of original oil in place. Petrophysical characterization of the East Ford unit was accomplished by integrating core and log data and quantifying petrophysical properties from wireline logs. Most methods of petrophysical analysis that had been developed during an earlier study of the Ford Geraldine unit were successfully transferred to the East Ford unit. However, the approach used to interpret water saturation from resistivity logs had to be modified because in some East Ford wells, the log-calculated water saturation was too high and inconsistent with observations made during the actual production. Log-porosity to core-porosity transforms and core-porosity to core permeability transforms were derived for the East Ford reservoir. The petrophysical data were used to map porosity, permeability, net pay, water saturation, mobile oil saturation, and other reservoir properties.