FONT, ROBERT G., and WAYNE A. MUDD, Geoscience Data Management, Inc., Dallas, TX

ABSTRACT: Exploration Opportunities for Independents -- Case Histories in North and East Texas

Exploration opportunities throughout the continental U.S.A. abound for today's independents. The shift of major oil companies towards the international scenario has resulted in chances ranging from purchases of producing properties to singular opportunities in exploration. Well-defined prospects backed by state-of-the-art technical data exist in the archives of most major, domestic oil companies. The fact that reserve levels linked to international and domestic offshore prospects are most attractive to the majors, establishes a window of opportunity for independents interested in domestic, onshore drilling of scientifically-sound, commercial tests.

As a point of illustration, prospects in north and east Texas have been selected for discussion. In north Texas, seismic reveals the potential which still exists within this mature, productive province. Subtle structural and stratigraphic traps involving the regionally-productive, Pennsylvanian conglomerates; the fractured, Mississippian Barnett Shale which acts as its own source, reservoir and trap, and where well-established rock mechanics models are applicable in determining optimum fracture development and prospect locations; the productive potential of the Cambro-Ordovician deep Ellenburger carbonates and underlying Cambrian sands; and a fascinating sequence of Pre-Cambrian truncated wedges of unknown hydrocarbon potential mark some of various opportunities that still exist for t e independent explorationist in this region. In east Texas, log analysis of untested sections of the Cretaceous Glen Rose formation, analogous to the prolific production found in the Alabama Ferry field, offer encouragement and affirm the prospective potential that remains for independents in the domestic, onshore scenario.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90987©1993 AAPG Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 25-28, 1993.