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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
January 2019

Vol. 24, No 3 Week of January 20, 2019

New Oklahoma land rush — beneath surface

IHS Markit report: Anadarko basin holds 16 billion barrels un-risked technically recoverable oil in unconventional reservoirs

Petroleum News

IHS Markit, which recently dubbed Alaska’s North Slope a super, rather than mature, basin, said Jan. 10 that its preliminary analysis indicates the Greater Anadarko basin, a source of conventional U.S. oil and gas production since the 1950s, holds an estimated “16 billion barrels of oil and more than 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in un-risked technically recoverable resources in unconventional reservoirs.”

The Anadarko basin lies in the west-central part of Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, extending into southwestern Kansas and southeastern Colorado. Through the end of 2011, Anadarko produced an estimated 125 tcf of gas and 5.4 billion barrels of oil. According to the Oklahoma Geological Survey the basin is about 70,000 square miles in size.

“The Anadarko basin has long been a major contributor to U.S. production, but it is just getting started in terms of delivering on its unconventional production potential,” said John Roberts, executive director, global subsurface operations and co-author of the IHS Markit Anadarko basin research with Prithiraj Chungkham, director of unconventional resources.

“We are now witnessing a new kind of Oklahoma land rush. But unlike what happened in 1889 when lands were opened to settlement, this time the competition is for access to the energy resources that lie below the surface,” Roberts said.

IHS Markit analysis shows that “the basin is pushing toward new all-time production highs long after conventional oil and gas production peaked in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively. Horizontal drilling in the Anadarko basin has increased sharply since 2008, and annual basin production volumes have already set new peak records.”

The IHS Markit Complete Play Analysis of the Greater Anadarko Basin, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, USA, is the first phase of a comprehensive, 18-month-long project to model and interpret the large basin’s key geologic characteristics, including 3-D geologic models of 41 plays to better estimate its remaining hydrocarbon potential, IHS said.

“The IHS Markit analysis provides significant advances in the accuracy and granularity of detailed producing-formation information that is historically difficult to acquire.

“By getting to a greater level of granularity and accuracy regarding producing formations, we change the entire view of the basin,” Roberts said. “For geologists, it’s like having a more powerful microscope.”

Surprising results in Simpson

Among the most surprising results, IHS said, was the “vast potential of the Simpson shale formation,” which IHS now believes could be one of the biggest yet-to-be developed shale plays in the United States.

“The Simpson has long been among the largest historical producers of vertical production in the Anadarko basin,” Roberts said. “But our new analysis shows that there is also significant Simpson potential as a major driver for horizontal shale production.”

The IHS analysis includes modeled and interpreted formations and benches in the Stack and Scoop plays and has delivered them in a workstation-ready 3-D format. The significant improvement in assigned formations not only adds detail and accuracy to the interpretive process, but dramatically changes the views of the basin and understanding of where future hydrocarbon potential exists, IHS said.

“As it stands now, only about 20 percent of the Anadarko basin’s Stack ‘sweet-spot’ locations have been drilled or developed,” Roberts said. “The play is still in its early stages of unconventional development. We can easily envision an additional 4,000 to 5,000 horizontal wells drilled.”

Forty-one stacked plays

Overall, the new results underscore the Anadarko basin’s renewed attractiveness.

“The Anadarko is attractive because it has 41 stacked plays, which overlap in many parts of the basin. For operators, that means multiple targets that can be accessed from one well pad.” Chungkham said.

The analysis utilizes the IHS Markit historical well and production database that includes more than 320,000 wells, and a new proprietary tool PRODFit, that, for the first time, enables them to leverage interpreted formation “tops” data to accurately identify formations of completion intervals on 275,000 wells. The data was then modeled and interpreted using IHS Kingdom geology and geophysics software.

Headquartered in London, IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO) describes itself as “a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions for the major industries and markets that drive economies worldwide. The company delivers next-generation information, analytics and solutions to customers in business, finance and government, improving their operational efficiency and providing deep insights that lead to well-informed, confident decisions.”






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