Print this pageAn Overview of Productive Horizons and Inferred Facies, Greater Natural Buttes Area, Uinta Basin, Northeastern Utah
Carrie Lee1, Howard White1, Rex Cole2, Sean Kelly1, Logan MacMillan1, Scott Matthews1, Drew Popovich1, Aisha Ragas1, Matt Ritter1, DeLonna Schutt1, Robert Single1, and Steve Stancel1
1GNB Asset Team, Anadarko Petroleum Corp, Denver, CO
2Dept. of Geology, Mesa State College, Grand Junction, CO
The Greater Natural Buttes (GNB) area produces primarily natural gas and associated liquid hydrocarbons from tight gas sandstones (TGS) from Eocene Lower Green River and Paleocene Wasatch Formations, and Upper Cretaceous Mesaverde Group covering an aerial extent of approximately 250,000 acres on the southeastern flank of the Uinta Basin. The original discovery and early field development wells of the 1950 - 1960’s were completed in the unlikely red-bed sequences of the Wasatch Formation from depths of 4,000 - 8,000 feet. Development progressed in the Wasatch, with only a few wildcat wells being drilled deeper into the Mesaverde Group, later inferred to be the source of the natural gas from coals and carbonaceous siltstones and shales interbedded with predominately fluvial sandstones.
The confluence of more detailed source-rock work and the evolution of petroleum systems concepts by the U.S.G.S., industry’s ability to add additional reserves from the various members of the Mesaverde Group, and the currently emerging deeper plays from the marine Cretaceous Mancos Shale and the Dakota Formation have intrigued numerous operating companies to develop deeper stratigraphic horizons, and to extend the play concepts aerially. These rocks, with now over 6,500 stratigraphic feet of proven reserves, and petroleum potential for an additional 5,000 stratigraphic feet for emerging plays challenge geoscientists and engineers with exploration and exploitation concepts using primarily subsurface well-log interpretations, projections of surface outcrop data from West Tavaputs Plateau and Book Cliffs approximately 50 miles west and south of the producing area and subsurface cores and detailed engineering assessments to generate petrophysical and reservoir characterization models with the likelihood of many additional iterations as the field well-density increases.
AAPG Search and Discover Article #90078©2008 AAPG Annual Convention, San Antonio, Texas