Palo Duro Basin, An Exploration Frontier in the Texas Panhandle: ABSTRACT

Abstract

Recent oil discoveries in the northwestern and central Palo Duro basin have renewed interest in this sparsely drilled area. Production in the northwest, in Oldham and Potter Counties, is from Pennsylvanian granite wash and carbonates. These fields are located in a highly faulted area south of the Amarillo uplift, and traps are structural. Discovery wells here produce oil at rates that range from 150 to 650 bbl per day. Oil production in the central basin, in Briscoe County, is from Pennsylvanian carbonate. The reservoir is probably a Strawn shelf-margin buildup or a debris flow into the basin from a younger Pennsylvanian shelf margin. The Palo Duro basin seems to contain potential reservoirs, traps, and source rocks; thermal maturity is probably the limiting factor for hydrocarbon production in the basin. The current geothermal gradient is relatively low, 1.1°F/100 ft (20°C/km), and it apparently has not been significantly different in the past. Vitrinite reflectance (Ro) measured in cores increases linearly with depth (temperature) by the relation: Ro = 0.00003 × depth (ft) + 0.36. Ro values seem to be in equilibrium with current depths and temperatures of the vitrinite. This suggests that (1) rocks in the basin are at or near their maximum burial depth, and (2) the geothermal gradient was not higher in the past. Shales of different ages that are at approximately the same depth have similar vitrinite reflectance values, an indication that increased time did not cause increased maturity in these Paleozoic samples. Deeply buried shales, 7,000 to 9,000 ft (213 to 2,743 m), from Pennsylvanian and Wolfcampian basin facies theoretically should have reached temperatures sufficient to generate hydrocarbons. Recent discoveries provide evidence that oil actually was generated in the Palo Duro basin. End_of_Article - Last_Page 454------------