Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources An Evaluation of the Department of the Interior's 1989 Assessment Procedures (1991) / Chapter Skim
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A Evaluation of the Hydrocarbon Resource Estimates for the Offshore Areas of Northern and Southern California and Florida South of 26° Latitude
A Evaluation of the Hydrocarbon Resource Estimates for the Offshore Areas of Northern and Southern California and Florida South of 26° Latitude
Pages 111-124
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From page 111... ...
Appendix A Evaluation of the Hydrocarbon Resource Estimates for the Offshore Areas of Northern and Southern California and Florida South of 26° Latitude Committee on Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources Board on Earth Sciences and Resources Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources National Research Council National Academy Press Washington, D.C.
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From page 112... ...
A-2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION CONTENTS NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF AREAS Evaluation of Methodology, 7 Conclusions, 10 SOUTH FLORIDA BASIN OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF, SOUTH OF 26° LATITUDE ............... Evaluation of Methodology, 11 Geology/Geopl~ysics Data Base, 11 Resource Assessment Procedures, 12 Conclusions, 14 APPENDIX A 3 s 7 ........
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From page 113... ...
In the panel's opinion the current resource estimates are very likely conservative because of incomplete consideration of potential stratigraphic accumulations and other conceptual plays not detectable by seismic methods and because of MMS risking techniques and · . economic screening.
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From page 114... ...
The Committee on Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources (the parent committee for the review of the three lease areas that are the subject of this report) is conducting a review of the methodologies and procedures used by MMS, and the information available to the agency in producing hydrocarbon resource estimates for all offshore areas of the United States.
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From page 115... ...
The Committee on Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources in the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources was reviewing methods of estimating onshore and offshore undiscovered hydrocarbon resources. The Committee to Review the Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Studies Program in the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology was reviewing the Environmental Studies Program (ESP)
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From page 116... ...
A-6 APPENDIX A The charge to each of the panels was to do the following: 1. Review and evaluate methodologies of estimates by MMS, and others, regarding the quantity and chemical composition of potential hydrocarbon resources in the OCS arrays)
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From page 117... ...
Evaluation of Methodology The panel reviewed the entire process by which economic evaluations for lease sales are derived on a tract basis and by which oil and gas resources are calculated. Because of the extensive seismic data base available to MMS in both the northern and the southern California lease sale areas, structural prospect mapping is the primary focus for identifying undiscovered resources of oil and gas.
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From page 118... ...
Inherent difficulties in identifying, justifying, and quantifying unidentified prospects may result in underestimating undiscovered resources, particularly in the more remote frontier areas such as the Eel River Basin of the northern California OCS area and the outer banks and basins of the Southern California OCS area. For example, in the northern California Eel River Basin, the entire "postulated" resource was allocated to an estimated 4 "unidentified" structural prospects as compared to 92 "identified" structural prospects.
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From page 119... ...
Nevertheless, the MMS methodology In characterizing the types and compositions of hydrocarbons in potential accumulations seems to the panel to be a fundamentally sound state-ofthe-art application of geochemical data and principles. At this stage in the committees review of the MMS methodology to estimate quantity and chemical composition of potential hydrocarbon resources, the assessments of the northern California area and the southern California area seem to be adequate for economic tract evaluation decision making.
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From page 120... ...
Although MMS has extensive seismic grid coverage, especially in the productive and more competitive basins and areas, northern portions of the Eel River Basin of northern California and the western extremities of the southern California outer banks and basins could be better understood with a denser . seismic grid.
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From page 121... ...
Extensive use of the available geologic literature was made in defining the nature of the basin and in focusing on the primary objective zones. No wells have been drilled in the offshore part of the basin to date, but well data from 6 dry holes along the Sarasota Arch, 11 dry hole along the Pine Key Arch, north and south of the basin, respectively, 3 dry holes in state waters on the south flank of the Sarasota Arch to the northeast of the basin, and data from the onshore, productive Sunniland Trend were extrapolated to define potentially productive zones.
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From page 122... ...
Lower Cretaceous formations make up most of the prospective section. Prospective horizons are the Dollar Bay carbonate and evaporite sequence, the Sunniland Formation, which has produced over 92 million barrels of oil from onshore fields, the porous Brown dolomite, the Pumpkin Bay and deeper carbonate sequence and the Lower Cretaceous Shelf Edge Reef Trend.
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From page 123... ...
The current method of assessing unidentified prospects based on a sample of seismically generated prospects is subjective in character and might be usefully supplemented in future assessments with objective statistical methods specifically tailored to a seismic search for prospects. The procedure for assigning risks to prospects follows standard MMS practice: judgmental probabilities of .90 to .94 for the prospect risk in frontier provinces is reasonable in light of experience elsewhere.
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From page 124... ...
The Committee on Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources (the parent committee for this panel) will comment further on the resource estimate of the South Florida Basin in it report to be issued in March 1990.
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