Preparation of Northern Mid-Continent Petroleum Atlas--Reporting Period: August 24, 1995 - December 31,1995

Cooperative Agreement No.: DE-FG22-95BC14817

Contractor Name and Address: The University of Kansas Center for Research Inc.

Date of Report: January 1, 1996

Award Date:August 24, 1995

Government Award for Current Fiscal Year: $ 250,000

Principal Investigators:

• Lee C Gerhard (Principal Investigator)
• Timothy R. Carr (Program Manager)
• W. Lynn Watney

Reporting Period: August 24, 1995 - December 31,1995

Project will develop a prototype for a digital and hard-copy atlas of petroleum fields and reservoirs in the northern Mid-continent region. A limited number of reservoirs in Kansas are to be included in the prototype project, but the goal is to expand beyond the prototype atlas to include significant reservoirs representing the major plays in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, the Williston basin portion of Montana, the Denver-Julesburg basin of eastern Colorado and southeastern Colorado.

Primary products of the prototype atlas will be on-line accessible digital data bases covering two selected petroleum plays in Kansas. The regional databases will be supplemented with geological field studies of selected fields in each play. Digital imagery, digital mapping, relational data queries, and geographical information systems will be integral to the field studies and regional data sets. Data sets will have relational links to provide opportunity for history-matching, feasibility, and risk analysis tests on contemplated exploration and development projects. The flexible "web-like" design of the atlas provides ready access to data, and technology at a variety of scales from regional, to field, to lease, and finally to the individual bore. The digital structure of the atlas permits the operator to access comprehensive reservoir data and customize the interpretative products (e.g., maps and cross-sections) to their needs. The atlas will be accessible in digital form on-line and through CD-ROM using a World-Wide-Web browser as the graphical user interface.

Regional data sets and field studies will be free-standing entities that will be made available on-line through the Internet to users as they are completed. Technology transfer activities will commence in the early part of this project, providing data information sets to operators prior to the full digital atlas compilation.

Summary of Technical Progress

All project personnel have been identified and, if necessary, hired. Criteria and procedures were developed to identify and select two plays in Kansas to be included in the prototype atlas. The targeted plays are the St. Louis oolite shoals (Mississippian oil) and the Morrow incised valleys (Pennsylvanian gas & oil). Both of these plays, located in southwest Kansas, are active exploration and development targets. Eight fields from the two plays were identified as possible candidates for a detailed field study. Contact was initiated with operators of these identified fields to obtain additional data (e.g., exploration history, seismic data, fluid analyses, special core analyses, etc.). Work was initiated on the structure of the "pages" and data schema for the atlas. Quarterly Progress Reports will be posted on the Digital Petroleum Atlas homepage.

On-line Prototype

A prototype of the digital atlas is being designed and tested. At present the prototype covers Arroyo Field and is accessible through the Petroleum Research Section (PRS) HomePage (The Universal Resource Locator [URL] is http://www.kgs.ku.edu/PRS/PRS.html). The present prototype design consists of the following components:

Field Title Page:

Outline of producing leases; location of discovery well(s), condensed field statistics, and access to field production data (Figure 1).

Regional Setting:

Geologic and production perspective at a regional scale.

General Information:

Basic geologic, geophysical, fluid, engineering, completion, and production data at the field scale.

Geological Information:

Access to geologic field maps and cross-sections though a type log graphical user interface. Clicking on selected horizon provides access to multiple maps at different levels.

Geophysical Information:

Will contain reflection seismic and other geophysical data. (Presently empty)

Reservoir Information

Will contain detailed reservoir engineering and geologic information. (Presently empty)

Well Information

Provides access to information on a single wellbore. Access is through an interactive map (click on the well symbol). Data includes raster image of original completion report, digital "scout ticket" data, production data in graphical and digital formats, and digital log data.

Technology Transfer

In December, the prototype atlas page was linked to the (PRS) homepage. December usage statistics indicate that the prototype atlas has been become one of the most visited pages on the PRS homepage (Usage statistics can be accessed at the bottom of the PRS homepage or at http://www.kgs.ku.edu/PRS/usage/past_stats.html). Informal comments from Kansas oil and gas operators have been uniformly favorable.