Author: Lowell Waite

The UTD Permian Basin Research Lab had a large and successful presence at the recent GSA South Central Meeting held in Ft. Worth, Texas, on March 9 – 11, 2020.

Bob Stern and Lowell Waite, along with Lily Pfeifer-Johnson and Alicia Bonar of the University of Oklahoma, co-chaired Technical Session T8, entitled “Permian of the South-Central U.S.: Land and Sea.”  This session included 10 presentations on various aspects of the Permian geology of the greater south-central US region, focusing on the relationship between Permian continental and marine environments, climate, tectonics, and magmatism.

Lowell Waite, along with co-authors Bob Stern (UTD) and Chris Scotese (Northwestern University) opened the session with a presentation entitled “One if by Land, Two if by Sea: Permian of the U.S. South Central region.  This talk provided a broad overview of Permian chronology and secular trends (global geologic themes).

Kevin Hiss, UTD graduate student at the PBRL, along with co-author and UTD alumnus David Williamson (Monadnock Resources), presented a talk entitled “Facies and Stratigraphy of the San Andres Formation (Middle Permian) Petroleum Province, Northwest Shelf of the Permian Basin, West Texas: A Resurgent Play.”  Kevin’s presentation highlighted the geologic setting and development of the San Andres carbonate reservoir, discussing the application of recent horizontal drilling and completion technology along the margins of established giant San Andres oil fields in Yoakum and Cochran counties, Texas.

A copy of the Waite et al. presentation will be posted on the PBRL website.  The Hiss and Williamson presentation is currently subject to a non-disclosure agreement, but a version of this will be posted if available.

This recently published article highlights the economic impact of the shale boom to the economy of New Mexico.  Oil from the state’s wells in 2019 is expected to surpass 300 million barrels, resulting in an unprecedented wave of oil and gas revenue, generating $1 billion-plus budget surpluses in the last two years.

https://www.governing.com/news/headlines/New-Mexico-Oil-Production-Boom-Fills-State-Coffers.html

Bob Stern and Lowell Waite visited the offices of Halff Energy in Dallas on the morning of October 22 and presented “The Wolfcamp Shale Play of the Midland Basin: A Magnificent Beast.”  The presentation was geared for non-geologists and reviewed some basics of petroleum geoscience, focusing on the importance and magnitude of the Permian Basin petroleum system and Wolfcamp Shale in particular.  In attendance were all four members of the Halff Energy staff as well as three Halff family members/owners and one invited guest.

Halff Energy, founded in 1985, is a growth-oriented general partnership owned by eight descendants of Henry M. Halff (1874-1934), a prominent west Texas rancher.  Their current interests comprise approximately 16,000 acres in Crockett, Midland, Reagan, and Upton counties.  More information on Halff Energy may be found here: http://www.halffenergy.com/

We thank owner Bro Halff for the invitation to speak to the Halff Energy team, and to Phillip Shawn, Land Manager, and Linda Waite, Accounting Manager, for the accommodations and providing lunch.  We are happy to tailor presentations to a wide variety of audiences, both technical and non- technical, in order to provide information on the “magnificent beast” that is the Permian Basin.

Lowell Waite presented “Stratigraphic framework of the Wolfcamp – Spraberry of the Midland Basin” at the October luncheon meeting of the Society of Independent Earth Scientists (SIPES) Dallas Chapter at the Prestonwood Country Club in Dallas.  The presentation was attended by approximately 50 members and guests, including UT Dallas geology graduate student Kevin Hiss.  The talk was well received, and several attendees afterwards expressed interest in learning more about our lab.  Representatives from two companies discussed potential projects and access to data sets.  Very exciting possibilities for future students!

On the evening of October 8, Lowell Waite presented an invited talk entitled “Stratigraphic framework of the Wolfcamp – Spraberry of the Midland Basin” to 25 members and guests of the Roswell Geologic Society in Roswell, New Mexico.  The presentation discussed the tectono-stratigraphic development of the Late Pennsylvanian through early Permian deep-water sediments of the Midland Basin, including the Wolfcamp shale (A – D units) and the overlying Dean and Spraberry formations.  Of particular emphasis is the differences between facies and mineralogy of the various units, a function of the dynamic evolution of the western margin of Pangea (e.g., eustasy, tectonics, climate, biota) during Late Pennsylvanian – early Permian time.

A copy of the presentation can be found here: https://labs.utdallas.edu/permianbasinresearch/presentations-and-data/

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released its International Energy Outlook 2019 report.  In it, they predict that global electricity generation from renewable energy sources (hydropower, wind, and solar) will grow from 28% in 2018 to 49% in 2050.  They predict that coal will remain the most-used industrial fuel, but that renewables will have the fastest rate of growth.  The report also concludes that petroleum and other liquid fuels consumption will increase by more than 20%, the majority of consumption growth occurring in non-OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) countries.

A full copy of the report can be downloaded from the EIA website, here: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/

A recently published opinion article by energy analyst David Blackmon in Forbes paints a slightly rosier picture for the immediate future of Permian Basin shale plays, in contrast to many recent “doom and gloom” articles heralding their imminent decline.  While acknowledging that some operators have been overly-aggressive with well spacing, he reports that average per-well recoveries continue to grow.  According to Allen Gilmer, Founder and COB of DrillingInfo, one reason why so many analysts acquire false beliefs about the health of the Permian play is due to a tendency to apply poor results of one operator to the entire basin.  Inherent heterogeneities in unconventional rocks makes such widespread assumptions misleading.

The full article may be viewed here:   https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2019/08/08/heres-what-is-really-happening-in-the-permian-basin/#d30e18f81ab2

We are pleased to announce that the UTD Permian Basin Research Lab has signed an academic licensing agreement with DrillingInfo to begin building our well and log data base.  We are happy to be on-board, and we and our students look forward to utilizing their powerful line of products as we conduct our research .

For more information on drillinginfo, visit https://info.drillinginfo.com/

Ft. Worth, Texas-based Basic Energy Services announced they completed a record 17, 935 ft lateral well in the Wolfcamp shale in the Delaware Basin.  The well is operated by Houston-based Surge Energy.  The completion consisted of 52 frac stages placing 2,200 lbs. of proppant/ft.

The story appeared in the Odessa American online edition: https://www.oaoa.com/inthepipeline/oil_news/article_cc7ab8f3-8b71-5844-b092-403b0bba69c5.html

Surge Energy news release: https://www.surgeenergya.com/InvestorRelations.News.html

A new article concerning diagenesis of the Wolfcamp D (Cline shale) of the Midland Basin has been published in the journal Chemical Geology.

In the paper, the main author, Alex Reis, of the University of Kentucky, along with co-workers Andrea Erhardt and Michael McGlue, University of Kentucky, and Lowell Waite, Pioneer Natural Resources, evaluated carbon and oxygen isotope trends within marine carbonates from select basinal cyclothem intervals of the Wolfcamp D.  A main conclusion from this work is that diagenesis of the carbonates in this mud-rich interval was controlled primarily by fluctuations in bottom-water redox chemistry, which influenced the extent of deep-burial carbonate cementation.

Abstract