Abstract: Depositional Regimes and Reservoir Characteristics of the Red Tank-East Livingston Ridge Delaware Field, Lea County, New Mexico

Markus D. Thomerson, Lee E. Catalano

The Red Tank-East Livingston Ridge Delaware field was discovered in January 1992, with the completion of the Strata Production 1 Cercion Federal for a daily pumping potential of 108 bbl of oil, 77,000 feet³ of gas, and 84 bbl of water. Oil production in the field is from the lower Guadalupian (Permian) Brushy Canyon Formation. Cumulative production from 21 wells through March 1993 is over 500,000 bbl of oil, 365,000,000 feet³ of gas, and 740,000 bbl of water.

The Brushy Canyon Formation in the Red Tank-East Livingston Ridge field consists of clean (no detrital shales) subarkosic sandstones and siltstones. The grains are subangular to angular and moderately sorted. The sandstones and siltstones have mean grain sizes (M_z) of 0.10 mm and 0.06 mm, respectively. Quartz overgrowths, carbonate cement, extensive dissolution of feldspars, and emplacement of authigenic clays have altered the original depositional fabric. Authigenic clays present are fibrous illite and expandable fixed-layer smectite/illite.

The Brushy Canyon reservoirs of the Red Tank-East Livingston Ridge field are combination stratigraphic-structural traps. A generalized sand-rich submarine fan/channel complex model is used to describe these reservoirs. The Brushy Canyon in the Red Tank-East Livingston Ridge field is subdivided into an upper and basal package based upon the different depositional regime interpreted for each package as a result of their relative positions to the shelf edge. The sandstones of the upper Brushy Canyon package resulted in the massive channel, overbank, and levee facies generally associated with the inner and middle fan. The distal fringe sands of the basal Brushy Canyon package are characteristic of the outer fan and basin plain.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90980©1994 AAPG Southwest Section Meeting, Ruidoso, New Mexico, April 24-26, 1994