Investigating Delaware Basin Bone Spring and Wolfcamp Observations Through Core-Based Quantification: Case Study in the Integrated Workflow, Including Closed Retort Comparisons

Abstract

The Delaware Basin of the greater Permian Basin system has been the focus of continually increased attention in the exploration, appraisal, and development phases of unconventional oil and gas potential over the past decade. While the industry continues to drill horizontal wells for the exploitation of producible hydrocarbon, subsurface disciplines continue to investigate the rock and fluid properties of the stratigraphy through the application of various technological tools. In this study, we focus on five wells spatially covering Loving, Ward, and Reeves Counties in West Texas, where whole core samples were acquired and investigated to compare variations in the Bone Spring and Wolfcamp Formations across varying geological contexts. Samples taken from the whole conventional core were investigated in the laboratory setting, and a series of measurements were acquired on each sample. The laboratory measurements distinguished trends and changes in the rock property volumes (i.e., porosity, saturation, total organic carbon) over stratigraphic intervals. The utilization of nuclear magnetic resonance, as well as acquired geochemical data, allows an innovative approach and application of a correction factor to be applied to the saturation quantification. Integration of geological context with measured laboratory data constraints and petrophysical wireline-log-based interpretation links predictive trends from the defined rock and fluid property distributions and may aid in predicting hydrocarbon vs. water production.