Abstract: Future of Underground Gas Storage in Cambro-Ordovician (Sauk Sequence) Rocks, Southeastern New York

B. Guo, J. P. Bass, G. Sarwar, G. M. Friedman

In southeastern New York, demand is increasing for large gas-storage capacity close to densely populated residential, business, and industry districts. Currently, all gas users in southeast NY obtain gas-storage supply through interstate gas transmission lines from storage fields in western NY, PA, WV and the South-West Market Area. No gas storage has been developed adjacent to transmission lines close to the metropolitan area, either on the recently completed Iroquois Gas Transmission pipeline in Dutchess County or the Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline in Orange and Rockland counties. However, Cambro-Ordovician (Sauk Sequence) rocks, found at depth beneath these counties, may possess suitable conditions for gas storage.

In response to abundant gas production in the Cambro-Ordovician in some neighboring states, such as Ohio and Ontario, companies have also begun to explore gas reservoir plays in deeper Cambro-Ordovician units in western New Yore The Cascade Brook Field in Wyoming County is the first gas field in New York in sandy dolostones of the Cambro-Ordovician Theresa Formation, part of the Beekmantown Group.

In southeastern New York, the Cambro-Ordovician Wappinger Group exhibits comparable lithofacies and petrophysical properties to the Beekmantown Group in western New York. A deep well drilled into the Cambro-Ordovician Halcyon Lake Formation in Orange County reported gas shows which, combined with studies into the structural geometries of the Taconic fold and thrust belt, suggests there may be economic gas-bearing reservoirs, or reservoirs suitable for gas storage, elsewhere in this poorly explored part of New York.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90954©1995 AAPG Eastern Section, Schenectady, New York