Geoscience/engineering characterization of the interwell environment in carbonate reservoirs based on outcrop analogs, Permian Basin, West Texas and New Mexico-stratigraphic hierarchy and cycle stacking facies distribution, and interwell-scale heterogeneity: Grayburg Formation, New Mexico. Final report

Abstract

The Grayburg Formation (middle Guadalupian) is a major producing interval in the Permian Basin and has yielded more than 2.5 billion barrels of oil in West Texas. Grayburg reservoirs have produced, on average, less than 30 percent of their original oil in place and are undergoing secondary and tertiary recovery. Efficient design of such enhanced recovery programs dictates improved geological models to better understand and predict reservoir heterogeneity imposed by depositional and diagenetic controls. The Grayburg records mixed carbonate-siliciclastic sedimentation on shallow-water platforms that rimmed the Delaware and Midland Basins. Grayburg outcrops in the Guadalupe and Brokeoff Mountains region on the northwest margin of the Delaware Basin present an opportunity to construct a detailed, three-dimensional image of the stratigraphic and facies architecture. This model can be applied towards improved description and characterization of heterogeneity in analogous Grayburg reservoirs. Four orders of stratigraphic hierarchy are recognized in the Grayburg Formation. The Grayburg represents a long-term composite sequence composed of four high-frequency sequences (HFS 1-4). Each HFS contains several composite cycles comprising two or more cycles that define intermediate-scale transgressive-regressive successions. Cycles are the smallest scale upward-shoaling vertical facies successions that can be recognized and correlated across various facies tracts. Cycles thus form the basis for establishing the detailed chronostratigraphic correlations needed to delineate facies heterogeneity.