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Permalink Reply by Robert Phillips on October 26, 2014 at 1:45

The higher pressure/natural fracture zone LSBD area of Union Ph. is on pure regional dip.  There has been extensive seismic coverage and drilling over the years and IIRC only one very small accumulation from an obvious strat trap.  Another problem is lack of a good Buckner seal.  This is simply not an area for a conventional Smackover play.  SWN surely knows this and their 3-D shoot is designed to maximize the only sweet spot found to date in the LSBD.

 

Oil & Gas ProPermalink Reply by Ken Marx on October 26, 2014 at 11:40

Robert - any thoughts on a Brown Dense top seal (middle SMKV) as opposed to or in addition to presence of regional Buckner (Upper SMKV) seal?

Permalink Reply by Robert Phillips on October 27, 2014 at 2:10

Good question.  Back in the day I had extensive experience in the MAFLA Smackover.  There are many areas where thick Buckner evaporites directly overlie lower Smackover, providing the extensive seal you are referring to; perhaps that is a better place to hunt.  My opinion is that there is no reliable regional seal for the LSBD anywhere U. Smk is present, the carbonates throughout the formation are brittle and it will depend upon local conditions as to whether natural fracture zones are contained within the member.  That is not saying that sweet spots cannot be found.  For many years it has been gospel that the dry gas of the Monroe Field has been and continues to be sourced by the Smackover through fault zones.  There must be a lot of grease still down there and perhaps the heavier, less mobile hydrocarbon fractions are still in place.  I do believe that any real success in the LSBD will be found further down dip in the wet gas window where formation pressures are higher, but it will take a big recovery in nat. gas prices to test the theory.