Digital Oil-Play Maps of the Permian Basin

Caroline L. Breton¹, Shirley P. Dutton¹, and Ronald F. Broadhead^2
1Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
²New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM

The Permian Basin of west Texas and southeast New Mexico, which produced >30 Bbbl of oil through 2000, remains an important oil-producing province. Because of the substantial amount of oil remaining in the basin, a digital oil-play portfolio was developed. A total of 1,339 significant-sized reservoirs in the basin each had cumulative production of >1 MMbbl of oil through 2000; total production from these reservoirs was 28.9 Bbbl. Thirty-two oil plays covering both the Texas and New Mexico parts of the Permian Basin were defined on the basis of reservoir stratigraphy, lithology, depositional environment, and structural and tectonic setting. Each significant-sized reservoir was assigned to a play and mapped using the Geographic Information System (GIS).

GIS files illustrate reservoirs, play boundaries, and boundaries of major geologic elements. For Texas reservoirs, wells were buffered by 0.5 mi and reservoir boundaries manually simplified. Although reservoir outlines generated by this process show approximate location, size, and shape of each reservoir, they are not precise boundaries. A reservoir shapefile for each play contains the geographic location of each reservoir and attribute information, including play name, play code, RRC unique reservoir number, RRC district, field name, reservoir name, state, county, discovery year, depth in feet to top of the reservoir, 2000 production in barrels, and cumulative production in barrels through 2000. New Mexico oil-pool-boundary (reservoir) and play-boundary GIS shapefiles were provided, rectilinear boundaries of New Mexico reservoirs reflecting legal definition of the fields. New Mexico and Texas play-boundary data were merged to form a single Permian Basin play-boundary shapefile. A map of five Pennsylvanian plays producing from ramp and platform carbonates and slope and basin sandstones illustrates the play maps.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90078©2008 AAPG Annual Convention, San Antonio, Texas