USGS assesses reserves in Western Gulf basin
The US Geological Survey (USGS) released its assessment of potential for undiscovered oil and gas in Maverick basin formations in the Western Gulf basin province.
USGS estimates that there are technically recoverable resources of 366 million bbl of oil and 11 tcf of gas in the area, as much gas as the United States consumes in 4 months at the current rate of consumption and is more than 3 times the total historic gas production from Maverick basin.
The assessment area includes Maverick basin and adjacent areas in southwestern Texas. The USGS looked at nine assessment units in the basin, including both conventional and continuous reservoirs of oil and gas in the Escondido, Olmos, and San Miguel formations of the southwestern Texas coastal plain.
Since exploration began in the area in the 1930s, the Maverick basin has produced at least 306 million bbl of oil and 3.4 tcf of gas.
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).