The easiest place to find petroleum deposits are where they have been found before, and nowhere is that old adage more true than in the continental U.S. Often oil and gas operators recover a very small fraction of the original volume of petroleum in place, which are written off because they cannot be economically produced. This talk compares vintage development techniques with today’s technology to examine how these changes may offer a smart geologist opportunities in the search for new reserves. We will then discuss the Trail Field in SW Wyoming as a case study of successful discovery of major new reserves in a very old field.
The easiest place to find petroleum deposits are where they have been found before, and nowhere is that old adage more true than in the continental U.S. Often oil and gas operators recover a very small fraction of the original volume of petroleum in place, which are written off because they cannot be economically produced. This talk compares vintage development techniques with today’s technology to examine how these changes may offer a smart geologist opportunities in the search for new reserves. We will then discuss the Trail Field in SW Wyoming as a case study of successful discovery of major new reserves in a very old field.