Exploration targets in the Great Basin of Utah

Conference · Sun Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1993 · AAPG Bulletin (American Association of Petroleum Geologists); (United States)

OSTI ID:6694361

Allison, M L; Chidsey, Jr, T C ^[1]

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1. Utah Geological Survey, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)

Three types of petroleum exploration targets are present in the Great Basin of Utah: structural traps in Tertiary sedimentary and volcanic rocks, unconformity traps of buried hills of Paleozoic rocks draped by Tertiary deposits, and structural traps related to thrusting where a wide variety of potential reservoir rocks are juxtaposed against Paleozoic source rocks. Tertiary targets are delineated by seismic surveys and consist of tilted fault blocks and faulted anticlines. The only success to date is Amoco's West Rozel field, in Great Salt Lake, which has in-place reserves estimated at 100 million to 1 billion bbl of oil, but is presently uneconomic. The oil is low gravity (4[degrees] API) with an extremely high sulfur content (12.5%). Little exploration has been done for these targets since the early 1980s when Amoco decided not to develop the field due to high water-cut and costs for offshore development.

• OSTI ID: 6694361
• Report Number(s): CONF-930947-; CODEN: AABUD2
• Journal Information: AAPG Bulletin (American Association of Petroleum Geologists); (United States), Vol. 77:8; Conference: Rocky Mountain section meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), Salt Lake City, UT (United States), 12-15 Sep 1993; ISSN 0149-1423
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
UTAH
PETROLEUM DEPOSITS
ANTICLINES
PETROLEUM GEOLOGY
SEDIMENTARY BASINS
SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
VOLCANIC ROCKS
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
GEOLOGY
IGNEOUS ROCKS
MINERAL RESOURCES
NORTH AMERICA
RESOURCES
ROCKS
USA
020200* - Petroleum- Reserves
Geology
& Exploration