Assessment of Continuous Oil Resources in the Wolfcamp Shale of the Midland Basin, Permian Basin Province, Texas, 2016, Open File-Report 2017–1013

Abstract

In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) completed a geology- based assessment of undiscovered, techni- cally recoverable continuous petroleum resources in the Pennsylvanian–Permian Wolfcamp shale (informal name) in the Midland Basin of the Permian Basin Province of west Texas (fig. 1). This is the first USGS evaluation of continu- ous resources in the Wolfcamp shale in the Midland Basin. Since the 1980s, the Wolfcamp shale in the Midland Basin has been part of the “Wolfberry” play that encompasses Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, and Lower Permian reservoirs (Hamlin and Baumgardner, 2012). This play has tradi- tionally been developed using vertical wells that are completed and stimulated in mul- tiple productive stratigraphic intervals that include the Wolfcamp shale and overlying Spraberry Formation. The Wolfcamp shale is being drilled for continuous oil using horizontal wells that are hydrauli- cally fractured. More than 3,000 horizontal wells have been drilled and completed in the Midland Basin Wolfcamp section (IHS Markit™, 2016).