Abstract

Low permeability play maps are a stand-alone U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) product widely used and referenced by the oil and gas community (including industry, government agencies, financial institutions, non-profit organizations, and academia).

Currently, EIA has access to commercial well-level data, including interpreted tops, digitized well log, and production for more than 30,000 wells in the Permian Basin. Based on publicly available data and interpreted formation tops we broadly outline the play extent and define the preliminary play boundaries. This process may involve identifying states, counties, types of wells, the product types, and reservoir names that roughly correspond to the play. We use the Enverus Transform software to update the representations and model and re-define the plays in terms of available data elements expressing reservoir properties and their associated values. We employ geostatistical tools, and multi-variate statistical models to generate play maps.

We have updated EIA maps and reports for the stacked reservoirs of the larger Permian Basin core areas, Delaware and Midland Basins, and published results on the EIA website:

https://www.eia.gov/maps/maps.php

https://www.eia.gov/maps/pdf/Permian-pI_Wolfcamp-Bonespring-Delaware.pdf

https://www.eia.gov/maps/pdf/EIA-Permian-Part-II.pdf

Reports include a geologic overview of the producing formations, structure, thickness, hydrocarbon production, and Initial GORs/Yields maps constructed using the most recent well-level data retrieved from commercial databases. Reports also contain geologic cross-sections, stratigraphic schemas, and 3-D Block diagrams. Furthermore, we generated the up-to-date Permian Basin spatial GIS layer for the US Energy Atlas oil and natural gas play module. This paper focuses on the Midland Basin, the eastern part of the larger Permian Basin.

Introduction

All The Permian Basin of West Texas and Southeast New Mexico has produced hydrocarbons for about 100 years and has supplied more than 40.6 billion barrels of oil and about 145 trillion cubic feet of natural gas as of January 2023. Implementing hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, and completion technology advancements during the past decade has reversed the production decline in the Permian Basin, and the basin has exceeded its previous production peak, set in the early 1970s. In 2022 Permian Basin production accounted for more than 44% of total U.S. crude oil production and more than 15% of total U.S. natural gas production (EIA DPR). As of 2021, EIA estimates remaining proven reserves in the Permian Basin exceed 14.8 billion barrels of oil and 75.0 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, making it one of the largest hydrocarbon-producing basins in the United States and the world (EIA, 2021).

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