MORGAN, CRAIG D., Utah Geological Survey, Salt Lake City, UT

ABSTRACT: Salt Wash Field, Grand County, Utah

The Salt Wash field is located 15 mi southeast of Green River, Utah, in the Paradox fold and fault belt. The field was discovered in 1961 and has produced over 1.3 million bbl of oil and 11.6 billion cu ft of gas from the Mississippian Leadville Limestone. The average surface elevation is 4389 ft above sea level, and the depth to the top of the oil production is from 8500 to 8914 ft.

Salt Wash field is an anticline with over 200 ft of closure on top of the Leadville. The producing zone is in the lower Leadville with intercrystalline and vuggy porosity developed in limestone and crystalline dolomitic limestone. The produced oil is a 50 to 53 API gravity crude with a 40 degrees F pour point. The gas, a mixture of two sources, is predominately nitrogen (>70~) with some hydrocarbons (>10%) and smaller amounts of carbon dioxide and helium. All of the original wells suffered casing collapse in the overlying Paradox section resulting in their premature abandonment. Additional undeveloped Leadville reserves may still be present.

There may also be undiscovered reserves in the stratigraphically higher Cane Creek shale of the Pennsylvanian Paradox Formation in the Salt Wash field. The field is roughly 12 mi northwest of the Kane Springs unit where Columbia Gas has been completing horizontally drilled wells in the Cane Creek. The State 1-16A well in Salt Wash field recovered 600 ft of 52 API gravity crude and no water from a drill-stem test of the Cane Creek. Reverse faulting and recumbent folding combined with structural closure increases the potential for fracture development in the Cane Creek at Salt Wash field.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90993©1993 AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah, September 12-15, 1993.