Caroline L. Breton

Play Analysis and Digital Portfolio of Major Oil Reservoirs in the Permian Basin: Application and Transfer of Advanced Geological and Engineering Technologies for Incremental Production Opportunities

The Permian Basin of west Texas and southeast New Mexico has produced >30 Bbbl (4.77 x 10{sup 9} m{sup 3}) of oil through 2000, most of it from 1,339 reservoirs having individual cumulative production >1 MMbbl (1.59 x 10{sup 5} m{sup 3}). These significant-sized reservoirs are the focus of this report. Thirty-two Permian Basin oil plays were defined, and each of the 1,339 significant-sized reservoirs was assigned to a play. The reservoirs were mapped and compiled in a Geographic Information System (GIS) by play. Associated reservoir information within linked data tables includes Railroad Commission of Texas reservoir number and district (Texas only), official field and reservoir name, year reservoir was discovered, depth to top of the reservoir, production in 2000, and cumulative production through 2000. Some tables also list subplays. Play boundaries were drawn for each play; the boundaries include areas where fields in that play occur but are 1 MMbbl (1.59 x 10{sup 5} m{sup 3}) was 301.4 MMbbl (4.79 x 10{sup 7} m{sup 3}) in 2000. Cumulative Permian Basin production through 2000 from these significant-sized reservoirs was 28.9 Bbbl (4.59 x 10{sup 9} m{sup 3}). The top four plays in cumulative production are the Northwest Shelf San Andres Platform Carbonate play (3.97 Bbbl [6.31 x 10{sup 8} m{sup 3}]), the Leonard Restricted Platform Carbonate play (3.30 Bbbl 5.25 x 10{sup 8} m{sup 3}), the Pennsylvanian and Lower Permian Horseshoe Atoll Carbonate play (2.70 Bbbl [4.29 x 10{sup 8} m{sup 3}]), and the San Andres Platform Carbonate play (2.15 Bbbl [3.42 x 10{sup 8} m{sup 3}]).

Time Series Analysis of Energy Production and Associated Landscape Fragmentation in the Eagle Ford Shale Play

Spatio-temporal trends in infrastructure footprints, energy production, and landscape alteration were assessed for the Eagle Ford Shale of Texas. The period of analysis was over four 2-year periods (2006–2014). Analyses used high-resolution imagery, as well as pipeline data to map EF infrastructure. Landscape conditions from 2006 were used as baseline. Results indicate that infrastructure footprints varied from 94.5 km2 in 2008 to 225.0 km2 in 2014. By 2014, decreased land-use intensities (ratio of land alteration to energy production) were noted play-wide. Core-area alteration by period was highest (3331.6 km2) in 2008 at the onset of play development, and increased from 582.3 to 3913.9 km2 by 2014, though substantial revegetation of localized core areas was observed throughout the study (i.e., alteration improved in some areas and worsened in others). Land-use intensity in the eastern portion of the play was consistently lower than that in the western portion, while core alteration remained relatively constant east to west. Land alteration from pipeline construction was ~65 km2 for all time periods, except in 2010 when alteration was recorded at 47 km2. Percent of total alteration from well-pad construction increased from 27.3% in 2008 to 71.5% in 2014. The average number of wells per pad across all 27 counties increased from 1.15 to 1.7. This study presents a framework for mapping landscape alteration from oil and gas infrastructure development. However, the framework could be applied to other energy development programs, such as wind or solar fields, or any other regional infrastructure development program.Graphical abstractLandscape alteration caused by hydrocarbon pipeline installation in Val Verde County, Texas

Source-Sink Matching and Potential for Carbon Capture and Storage in the Gulf Coast

Current global levels of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are 25.6 Gigatons yr. Approximately 1 Gigaton comes from the Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi Gulf Coast, representing 16 percent of the U.S. annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. The Gulf Coast region provides an opportunity for addressing the problem. Geologic sequestration results from the capturing of CO2 from combustion products and injecting the compressed gas as a supercritical fluid into subsurface brine aquifers for long-term storage. The Gulf Coast overlies an unusually thick succession of highly porous and permeable sand aquifers separated by thick shale aquitards. The Gulf Coast also has a large potential for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), in which CO2 injected into suitable oil reservoirs could be used first for EOR and then for large-volume, long-term storage of CO2 in nonproductive formations below the reservoir interval. For example, there are numerous opportunities for locating CO2 injection wells either in fields for EOR or in stacked brine aquifers near potential FutureGen sites, where a near-zero emission facility would generate primarily hydrogen and CO2 as by-products. We estimate that in the Gulf Coast, outside of the traditional area of CO2 EOR in the Permian Basin, an additional 4.5 billion barrels of oil could be produced by using miscible CO2. At

Potential Sinks for Geologic Storage of CO2 Generated in the Carolinas

60 per barrel, this incremental production is estimated to have a wellhead value of

Play analysis and leading-edge oil-reservoir development methods in the Permian basin: Increased recovery through advanced technologies

270 billion that could generate more than

CO2 source-sink matching in the lower 48 United States, with examples from the Texas Gulf Coast and Permian Basin.

40 billion in taxes.

Geologic and infrastructure factors for delineating areas for clean coal: examples in Texas, USA

Duke Energy, Progress Energy, Santee Cooper Power, South Carolina Electric and Gas, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Southern States Energy Board (SSEB)