New Techniques for New Discoveries – Results from the Lisbon Field Area, Paradox Basin, Utah
Seneshen, David M.1, Thomas C. Chidsey2, Craig D. Morgan2, and
Michael D. Vanden Berg2
1Vista Geoscience, Golden, CO
2Utah Geological Survey, Salt lake City, UT
Exploration for Mississippian Leadville Limestone-Hosted
hydrocarbon reservoirs in the Paradox Basin is high risk in terms of
cost and low documented success rates (10% based on drilling
history). The potential for more hydrocarbon reserves is enormous,
but the high cost of seismic exploration methods in environmentally
sensitive areas deters small independents from exploring for Leadville
hydrocarbon reservoirs. This study was therefore initiated over the
Lisbon and Lightning Draw Southeast fields to evaluate the
effectiveness of low-cost surface geochemical methods for predicting
productive and non-productive Leadville carbonate reservoirs. The
main conclusions of the study are:
(1) Low-cost surface geochemical methods are effective for
distinguishing between productive and non-productive parts of
Leadville reservoirs.
(2) Important variables for distinguishing productive from nonproductive
areas are light alkanes and aromatics (C1-C6), heavy
aromatics (C30+), uranium, vanadium, cadmium, molybdenum, and
lead.
(3) Productive “Lisbon-type” microseepage signatures, based on
discriminant analysis of C1-C12 hydrocarbon data, are observed over
the recently discovered Leadville Lightning Draw Southeast gas
condensate field southwest of Lisbon. Compositional signatures over
the Lightning Draw field also predict productive parts of Lisbon.
(4) Hydrocarbons (C1-C6), hydrogen and carbon dioxide are
anomalous in free gas samples over productive parts of Leadville
reservoirs.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90071 © 2007 AAPG Rocky Mountain Meeting, Snowbird, Utah