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Title: Geologic description of middle Devonian Chert Reservoir, Block 31 field, Crane County, Texas

Conference ·
OSTI ID:6634026

Block 31 field is a large anticlinal structure that produces from six pay zones. The first miscible gas-injection enhanced oil recovery project has been operated by ARCO since 1952 in the middle Devonian reservoir, which is the main producing interval in the field. The middle Devonian unit was deposited as a siliceous, calcareous ooze in a basin-slope environment in the ancient Tobosa basin. Sedimentation buried earlier fault blocks, as the slope deposits aggraded and prograded mainly from the west and south. Subsequent diagenesis converted the ooze into calcareous chert. Reservoir quality of the chert depends on degree of compaction and quartz cementation. Gray, dense, glassy chert at the base of the sequence is nonporous except for small, incipient fractures in the brittle matrix. Creamy white, evenly laminated, microporous, calcareous chert, which alternates with and overlies the dense chert in the lower half of the middle Devonian interval, has porosity of 10-30% and permeability as great as 10 md. The upper half of the reservoir interval consists mainly of light-gray and white, partially porous, heterogeneous, calcareous chert. This rock type has porosity of 5-20%, but permeability is usually less than 3 md. Patchy silica cement, discontinuous low-permeability laminae, and thin beds of dense limestone reduce its effectiveness as a reservoir.

OSTI ID:
6634026
Report Number(s):
CONF-880301-
Resource Relation:
Conference: Annual meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Houston, TX, USA, 20 Mar 1988
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English