Under a cooperative agreement with the Morgantown Energy Technology Center (METC) the Appalachian Oil and Natural Gas Research Consortium (AONGRC) is preparing a geologic atlas of the major gas plays in the Appalachian basin, and compiling a database for all fields in each geologic play. the first obligation under this agreement was to prepare a topical report that identifies the major gas plays, briefly describes each play, and explains how the plays were selected. Four main objectives have been defined for this initial task: assign each gas reservoir to a geologic play, based on age, trap type, degree of structural control, and depositional environment; organize all plays into geologically-similar groups based on the main criteria that defines each play; prepare a topical report for METC; and transfer this technology to industry through posters and talks at regional geological and engineering meetings including the Appalachian Petroleum Geology Symposium, Northeastern Section meeting of the Geological Society of America, the METC Gas Contractors Review meeting, the Kentucky Oil and Gas Association, and the Appalachian Energy Group.
The objectives of this contract are to produce a panted atlas of major Appalachian basin gas plays and to compile a machine-readable database of reservoir data. The Appalachian Oil and Natural Gas Research Consortium (AONGRC or the Consortium), a partnership of the state geological surveys in Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, and the departments of Geology and Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering at West Virginia University (WVU), agrees with the need to classify gas reservoirs by geologic plays. During meetings with industry representatives, the small independents in the basin emphasized that one of their prime needs was to place each producing reservoir within a stratigraphic framework subdivided by environment of deposition to enable them to develop exploration and development strategies. The text for eight of the 31 play descriptions has been completed, drafting of illustrations for these plays is underway (or complete for some plays), and the review process is ongoing.
Task 2 of the ''Atlas of Major Appalachian Basin Gas Plays'' a is the data collection and compilation phase of the project. The prime objective is to collect information by pool, i.e., producing reservoir within a field, that will provide (1) basic reservoir data, (2) reservoir parameters, (3) fluid and gas properties, and (4) volumetric data. It is imperative that all data elements be well understood by all participants to facilitate this process. This report presents an overview of data collection topics. Three families of data that be part of this project: (1) the data base of pool information, (2) drawings, charts, and maps, and (3) text data, including bibliographic information. An initial data definition will be presented with an emphasis on the data base of basic information by pool. Because of the direct bearing on Task 2 of the project and the development of a data base as a deliverable product, this report will concentrate mainly on data definition and collection. A basic data collection strategy is included.
To encourage, facilitate and accelerate the development of tight gas reservoirs in the Appalachian basin, the geological surveys in Pennsylvania and West Virginia collected widely dispersed data on five gas plays and formatted these data into a large database that can be accessed by individual well or by play. The database and delivery system that were developed can be applied to any of the 30 gas plays that have been defined in the basin, but for this project, data compilation was restricted to the following: the Mississippian-Devonian Berea/Murrysville sandstone play and the Upper Devonian Venango, Bradford and Elk sandstone plays in Pennsylvania and West Virginia; and the 'Clinton'/Medina sandstone play in northwestern Pennsylvania. In addition, some data were collected on the Tuscarora Sandstone play in West Virginia, which is the lateral equivalent of the Medina Sandstone in Pennsylvania. Modern geophysical logs are the most common and cost-effective tools for evaluating reservoirs. Therefore, all of the well logs in the libraries of the two surveys from wells that had penetrated the key plays were scanned, generating nearly 75,000 scanned e-log files from more than 40,000 wells. A standard file-naming convention for scanned logs was developed, which includes the well API number, log curve type(s) scanned, and the availability of log analyses or half-scale logs. In addition to well logs, other types of documents were scanned, including core data (descriptions, analyses, porosity-permeability cross-plots), figures from relevant chapters of the Atlas of Major Appalachian Gas Plays, selected figures from survey publications, and information from unpublished reports and student theses and dissertations. Monthly and annual production data from 1979 to 2007 for West Virginia wells in these plays are available as well. The final database also includes digitized logs from more than 800 wells, sample descriptions from more than 550 wells, more than 600 digital photos in 1-foot intervals from 11 cores, and approximately 260 references for these plays. A primary objective of the research was to make data and information available free to producers through an on-line data delivery model designed for public access on the Internet. The web-based application that was developed utilizes ESRI's ArcIMS GIS software to deliver both well-based and play-based data that are searchable through user-originated queries, and allows interactive regional geographic and geologic mapping that is play-based. System tools help users develop their customized spatial queries. A link also has been provided to the West Virginia Geological Survey's 'pipeline' system for accessing all available well-specific data for more than 140,000 wells in West Virginia. However, only well-specific queries by API number are permitted at this time. The comprehensive project web site (http://www.wvgs.wvnet.edu/atg) resides on West Virginia Geological Survey's servers and links are provided from the Pennsylvania Geological Survey and Appalachian Oil and Natural Gas Research Consortium web sites.
The Appalachian Oil and Natural Gas Research Consortium (AONGRC or the Consortium) through a cooperative agreement with the US Department of Energy (DOE), will develop an atlas of major Appalachian gas plays and a machine readable database containing information about these plays. The specific objectives are to: define major gas plays in the basin by age and formation/group and then further by subdividing these units by reservoir rock trap type and depositional environments; determine and map all pools that are in each play; determine data to be collected and published for each pool; conduct a literature search for published and unpublished reservoir data, maps, cross sections, decline curves, and seismic profiles; utilize databases residing of state surveys to produce maps for key fields not available in literature; analyze cores and logs for key fields where these data are not available; redraft available maps and cross sections, compile tables of field data, and layout the atlas pages, including text; arrange the publication of the atlas; and deliver a machine readable database to the Department of Energy.
