A Regional Subsurface Geological Investigation of Lower Wilcox Group Coalbed Natural Gas Potential in Northeastern Louisiana

Christopher A. Guidry¹, Gary L. Kinsland², and F. Clayton Breland^3
1 Devon Energy, 1200 Smith St., Houston, Texas 77002
² Energy Institute, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, P.O. Box 44530, Lafayette, Louisiana 70504
³ Basin Research Institute, P.O. Box G, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70893

Coalbed natural gas (CBNG) exploration in northern Louisiana has increased significantly over the past decade. However, in the northeastern portion of the state, the activity has not been as aggressive. This study found that this is partly due to the Monroe Uplift, which caused the Wilcox Group’s shallow, thin occurrence compared to surrounding areas. This study, part of a large initiative to better understand the CBNG potential of northern Louisiana, also concludes that while the CBNG potential is limited in the area, due to stratigraphy, there are still localized, potentially methane productive areas.

The study includes all or part of eight parishes in northeastern Louisiana, covering approximately 5100 mi². From the more than 20,000 wells found in this region, approximately 120 evenly spaced wells were used to try to determine the structure and stratigraphy of the area. From these wells, spontaneous potential (SP) and resistivity curves, along with various other exotics such as sonic and gamma ray curves were digitized from raster images of the logs which were imported into a large 3D database at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise (LITE) facility. The digitized curves were correlated along several key horizons to create structure maps and the resulting intervals were used to determine statistical information in order to create net coal maps which were then used to define area of coal prospectivity.

AAPG Search and Discover Article #90069©2007 GCAGS 57th Annual Convention, Corpus Christi, Texas