--> What influences production from the Wall Creek and Turner Reservoirs in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin

AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting

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What influences production from the Wall Creek and Turner Reservoirs in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin

Abstract

The Upper Cretaceous Wall Creek Sandstone Member of the Frontier Formation and the Turner Sandy Member of the Carlile Shale are one of the most prolific unconventional plays in the Powder River Basin (PRB) of Wyoming. From 2017 through 2018, the Wall Creek and Turner reservoirs accounted for 39 percent of the PRB’s and 21 percent of Wyoming’s oil production. The Turner was also the PRB’s highest non-coal gas-producing reservoir during this time period, accounting for 23 percent of all natural gas produced from the basin. This study evaluated horizontal well drilling and completion practices, in addition to reservoir geology, to determine what factors influence production from the PRB Wall Creek and Turner reservoirs. Wall Creek-Turner oil and gas production is graphically compared to the producing interval lengths and lateral orientations of horizontal wells, completion techniques such as hydraulic fracturing (frac) stages, slurry and proppant volumes, and operatorspecific trends over time. Interpolated surfaces and contours are used to spatially compare basin-wide production trends to reservoir characteristics, including formation depth, thickness, pressure, temperature, regional structural features, and hydrocarbon compositions such as crude oil API gravity, gas-oil ratios, and gas-fraction ratios. The graphical, spatial, and statistical comparisons of these variables suggest that hydrocarbon production from the complex PRB Wall Creek-Turner reservoir system is more influenced by geology than by horizontal well completion techniques.