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Abstract: Coal-Bed Methane Resources and Reserves of Osage County, Oklahoma

FRIEDMAN, SAMUEL A.

About 100 oil wells have been "recompleted" in and are producing gas from four Middle Pennsylvanian bituminous coal beds, 1,200--1,700 feet deep in eastern Osage County since January 1, 1995. The present study applied the standard method of reliability to determine coal resources, and thence coal gas resources from geophysical logs in this county. Cored coal samples and coal-test well data were not available for accurate resource determination. The geophysical logs were not originally set up to detect coal not alone thin coal beds one to three feet thick, thus making coal-bed thickness interpretation a hazardous procedure with great potential for major errors in coal resource determination and subsequently in coal-bed methane resource determination.

To avoid the high likelihood of exaggerated quantities of coal resources, the author restricted the total area to seven and one-half townships, the number of coals to three per well in five of these townships, and to two per well in two and one-half townships. All coal-beds were assumed to be only one foot thick and to contain only 150 cubic feet of gas per ton of coal.

Thus a minimum of 553 million tons of coal resources and 83 billion cubic feet of coal-bed methane resources are estimated to be present in eastern Osage County, Oklahoma.

At a 50% recoverability factor, there are 41 billion cubic feet of coal-bed methane reserves present.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90944©1997 AAPG Mid-Continent Section Meeting, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma