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Objectives and Significance
The majority of Mississippian production in Kansas occurs
at or near the top of the Mississippian section just below the
regional sub-Pennsylvanian unconformity. These reservoirs are
a major source of Kansas oil production and account for approximately
43% (21 million barrels in 1994) of total annual production (Carr
et a]., 1995a). Cumulative production from Mississippian reservoirs
in Kansas exceeds 1 billion barrels. Many of these reservoirs
and production units are operated by small independent producers.
Extremely high water cuts and low recovery factors place continued
operations at or near their economic limits.
This project addresses producibility problems in the numerous
Kansas fields such as the Schaben field in Ness County that produce
from Meramecian and Osagian dolomites beneath the subPennsylvanian
unconformity. Producibility problems in these reservoirs include
inadequate reservoir characterization, drilling and completion
design problems, and non-optimal primary recovery. Tools and
techniques will facilitate integrated, multi-disciplinary reservoir
characterization. Application of cost-effective reservoir description
and management strategies can significantly extend the economic
life of these mature peritidal carbonate fields and recover significant
incremental reserves. Equally important is innovative dissemination
of the data, methodologies, and results to foster wider application
of demonstrated technologies by the numerous operators of similar
fields throughout the northern Mid-continent and US. |