American Oil and Gas Reporter - PBIOS 2014 Official Program Guide - 174

Tx., that a minimum of 4 billion barrels
of oil had be swept out of the trend along
the western side of the Central Basin
Platform. No wonder there are no large
San Andres fields on that trend south of
the Texas/New Mexico line. Mother Nature
is truly an efficient waterflood engineer!
One additional point to ponder is the
speed, or lack thereof, of the water. If the
water, with a natural drive, is moving at
less than one foot a year, CO2 being sequestered in Permian Basin reservoirs
following CO2 EOR probably is not going
to move at speeds that will be of concern
to offset operators-or environmentalists-
in real time.
Legado ROZ Flood
The second study, which was nearing
completion in September, was sponsored
by the DOE, and UTPB again worked
with industry partners Melzer Consulting,
Arcadis-US, ARI, Legado, Chevron and
Kinder Morgan. This project is a case
study of Legado's ROZ and Main Pay
CO2 EOR flood in the Goldsmith Landreth
San Andres Unit (GLSAU) in the Goldsmith Field, 25 miles northwest of Odessa.
Independent producer Legado Resources initiated a ROZ CO2 flood in the
10-section unit, which prior to the CO2
EOR project, was producing less than
150 bbl/d oil from the main pay only.
The CEED geology department worked
with Legado to develop a geologic characterization of the entire reservoir. Graduate students and faculty, working with
ore donated by Legado, created a network
of core descriptions, identified the digenetic overprint of the ROZ, and tied the
geologic cycles to the engineering flow
units. This model was imported into ARI's
engineering reservoir model. Together,
this created the first commercially available
case study of a ROZ CO2 flood.
As one of the initial steps, ARI had to
replicate the reservoir conditions present
at the field's 1935 discovery. As the ROZ
was being added to the reservoir characterization for the first time, ARI had to
model Mother Nature's waterflood. It
was successful in doing this and confirmed
the conclusions drawn in the regional
meteoric-derived ROZ modeling study.
UTPB's engineering department also
is involved in this project. Faculty and
students are evaluating the injection profiles run through the main pay and the
ROZ. Again, this is the first time the
results of profiles run in a CO2 flood in
the ROZ will be available publically.
Legado sold the GLSAU in 2013 to
Kinder Morgan, after it had increased
production from the ROZ and main pay
CO2 flood to more than 1,200 bbl/d oil.

Size Of The Prize
The third study is nearing completion
as well, and is evaluating regional ROZ
reserves and developing an estimate of
the oil in place for the ROZ in the San
Andres formation. This project also is
intended to determine how much oil can
be recovered economically from greenfield
ROZ reserves utilizing CO2.
This study is again sponsored by the
DOE and RPSEA, and is being conducted
by UTPB with industry partners Melzer
Consulting (as co-principal investigator),
Arcadis, ARI, and Phil Eager. Graduate
students are working with industry partners
to retrieve publically available core data
at the Midland Energy Library in order to
identify and document the aerial and vertical extent of the ROZ, the amount of oil
saturation, and how the resource varies.
ARI is evaluating the greenfield potential in a four-county area (Gaines,
Dawson, Terry and Yoakum) covering
parts of the Central Basin Platform, Northwest Shelf and Midland Basin in Texas.
More than half-66.5 billion barrels-
of the ROZ fairway resource is higher
quality, having an oil saturation greater
than 25 percent and porosity greater than
8 percent. The remaining portion-40.6
billion barrels-of the ROZ fairway resource is lower quality, having an oil saturation less than 25 percent and/or porosity
less than 8 percent.
It is anticipated that one-third of the
oil in place in high quality ROZs can be
recovered economically. In the fourcounty area alone, this would result in
production of more than 20 billion barrels,
and would have the added benefit of providing long-term storage for trillions of
cubic feet of CO2.
UTPB CEED and its geology depart-

ment also have been working with industry
partners to create the first Industry Affiliates
Program at UTPB. Modeled on those at
the University of Texas at Austin and the
Bureau of Economic Geology, the program
is attracting interest from potential industry
partners both here and abroad to continue
to study ROZs and their aspects in basins
around the country and the world. Interest
has been shown by Saudi Arabia and Australia in the ROZ work done by UTPB
and its industry partners.
As UTPB has grown over the past
decade, so has its involvement with the
Permian Basin petroleum industry. The
geology graduate program has grown
fivefold in number of students. Today,
there are more than 70 students pursuing
masters' in geology. Most of them already
are employed in the petroleum industry
and are working to upgrade their value
to their companies.
Additionally, UTPB has a new petroleum engineering department, which graduated its first students in the fall of 2013
and is continuing to grow.
❒
ROBERT C. TRENTHAM is a senior
lecturer in geology at the University
of Texas of the Permian Basin, and is
director of the Center for Energy &
Economic Diversification at UTPB.
Before joining UTPB in 2001, Trentham
served as a consulting geologist at
Muskoka Consultants in Midland. Prior
to that, he worked for seven years as a
senior geologist at Chevron U.S.A.
and as a project geologist at Gulf Oil
Co. He holds a B.S. and an M.A. in
geology from City College of New York
and a doctorate in geology from the
University of Texas at El Paso.

Kinder Morgan Shares Plan To Export Gas To Mexico
HOUSTON-Kinder Morgan Energy
Partners LP reports El Paso Natural Gas
Co. (EPNG) has entered into a 21-year
firm transportation agreement with Mexico's Comisión Federal de Electricidad
to initially provide 163,000 dekatherms
a day of firm transportation capacity by
October 2014, ramping up to 200,000
dth/d by October 2017 and 550,000 dth/d
by October 2020.
According to the company, the phased
capacity increases will be accomplished
using existing and expansion capacity on
EPNG's system. Kinder Morgan estimates
expenditures will be $529 million.
Engineering and procurement activities
are under way on the first phase of work,
the company says, which involves system
improvements to deliver volumes to the

174 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

Sierrita Pipeline near Tucson, Az. The
second phase, which is expected to be
completed by October 2020, will result
in incremental deliveries of natural gas
to the Sierrita pipeline and to California.
"This firm transportation agreement
will help CFE to realize its goal of converting numerous fuel oil-powered generation plants throughout Mexico to natural
gas, as well as provide transportation for
a number of new gas-fired plants under
development," says Mark Kissel, Kinder
Morgan west region vice president.
Transportation service will be provided
by utilizing existing capacity on EPNG's
north mainline, Kinder Morgan indicates,
along with undertaking certain system
upgrades to enhance deliverability to the
south mainline.
❒

American Oil and Gas Reporter - PBIOS 2014 Official Program Guide

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