Economics of U.S. Oil and Gas Resources
Estimating Recovery Factors
Low Cost Development Strategy of Incremental Oil in Legacy Reservoirs
SPE/IAEE Hydrocarbon Economics and Evaluation Symposium, 17-18 May, Houston, Texas, USA.
View PublicationFlow Regime Changes in Hydraulically Fractured Bakken Oil Wells
Natural Resources Research, pp 259-272, Vol. 28, No. 1.
View PublicationScience Center Objects
The U.S. Geological Survey prepares geologic assessments of undiscovered and undeveloped (identified) oil and gas resources (see National Oil and Gas Assessment website). In addition to our USGS oil and gas geologic assessments, economic research gives policymakers and analysts in the private sector additional information by scaling economic variables. Economic attributes must include the costs of finding, developing, and producing undiscovered and undeveloped resources for both conventional and unconventional oil and gas occurrences. This research activity provides for the economic analysis of selected USGS energy resource geologic assessments so that government policymakers and industry decision makers have information on what part of the resource is commercial and, if currently produced, how long production can be sustained. Another thrust of this ongoing research is to propose enhancements in assessment methods that would permit more transparency in the economic analysis of the assessed resource.
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Date published: December 11, 2018Status: ActiveEconomics, Energy Resources, and Future Energy Supply
The members of this project have prepared a number of analyses that constitute the economic components of energy resource assessments. They have also proposed enhancements to geologic assessment data and methods that make results of assessments immediately amenable to economic analysis. In addition, they apply theoretically sound valuation methodologies to assess the commercial value of...
Contacts: Steven T Anderson, Philip A Freeman -
Date published: November 16, 2018Status: ActiveEconomics of Global Marginal Hydrocarbon and Non-traditional Resources
During the last decade many producing countries have reassigned conventional oil and gas development rights to their national oil companies (NOCs). In fact the 13 largest energy companies, when measured by oil and gas reserves, are controlled by sovereign governments. The result is that the NOC’s will control a significant share of future oil and gas production. The international oil companies...
Contacts: Steven T Anderson, Philip A Freeman
Well predictive performance of play-wide and Subarea Random Forest models for Bakken productivity
In recent years, geologists and petroleum engineers have struggled to clearly identify the mechanisms that drive productivity in horizontal, hydraulically-fractured oil wells producing from the middle member of the Bakken formation. This paper fills a gap in the literature by showing how this play’s heterogeneity affects factors that drive well...
Attanasi, Emil D.; Freeman, Philip A.; Coburn, Tim Estimating market conditions for potential entry of new sources of anthropogenic CO2 for EOR in the Permian Basin
This study attempts to determine feasible carbon dioxide (CO2) price thresholds for entry of new sources of anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 for utilization in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the Permian Basin. Much of the discussion about carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) has focused on the high costs of carbon capture as the major...
Anderson, Steven T.; Cahan, Steven Growth drivers of Bakken oil well productivity
This paper identifies the drivers of the phenomenal growth in productivity in hydraulically fractured horizontal oil wells producing from the middle member of the Bakken Formation in North Dakota. The data show a strong underlying spatial component and somewhat weaker temporal component. Drivers of the spatial component are favorable reservoir...
Attanasi, Emil D.; Freeman, Philip A. Statistical detection of flow regime changes in horizontal hydraulically fractured Bakken oil wells
The application of horizontal and hydraulically fractured wells for producing oil from low permeability formations has changed the face of the North American oil industry. One feature of the production profile of many such wells is a transition from transient linear oil flow to boundary-dominated flow. The identification of the time of this...
Attanasi, Emil D.; Coburn, T.C.; Ran-McDonald, B.
Using CO2 Prophet to estimate recovery factors for carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery
IntroductionThe Oil and Gas Journal’s enhanced oil recovery (EOR) survey for 2014 (Koottungal, 2014) showed that gas injection is the most frequently applied method of EOR in the United States and that carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is the most commonly used injection fluid for miscible operations. The CO2-EOR process typically follows primary and...
Attanasi, Emil D. Bitumen prices and structural changes in North American crude oil markets
In an earlier report, changes in bitumen prices at Hardesty, Alberta, Canada, were modeled as the responses to changes in monthly prices of Hardesty light/medium crude oil for the period 2000–2006 with a simple error correction econometric model. This note re-examines that price relationship for the period 2009–2014. Over the period 2006–2014,...
Attanasi, Emil D.
Play-level distributions of estimates of recovery factors for a miscible carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery method used in oil reservoirs in the conterminous United States
In a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study, recovery-factor estimates were calculated by using a publicly available reservoir simulator (CO2 Prophet) to estimate how much oil might be recovered with the application of a miscible carbon dioxide (CO2) enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method to technically screened oil reservoirs located in onshore and...
Attanasi, E.D.; Freeman, P.A. A strategy for low cost development of incremental oil in legacy reservoirs
The precipitous decline in oil prices during 2015 has forced operators to search for ways to develop low-cost and low-risk oil reserves. This study examines strategies to low cost development of legacy reservoirs, particularly those which have already implemented a carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2 EOR) program. Initially the study...
Attanasi, E.D.
Profiles of reservoir properties of oil-bearing plays for selected petroleum provinces in the United States
Profiles of reservoir properties of oil-bearing plays for selected petroleum provinces in the United States were developed to characterize the database to be used for a potential assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of oil that would be technically recoverable by the application of enhanced oil recovery methods using injection of carbon...
Freeman, Philip A.; Attanasi, Emil D. Evaluation of development options for Alaska North Slope viscous and heavy oil
Current estimates of discovered viscous and heavy oil in Alaska’s North Slope are 12 billion barrels of oil-in-place and 12–18 billion barrels of oil-in-place, respectively (see Appendix 1 for conversion to SI units). Since the early 1990s to the end of 2010, cumulative viscous oil production has amounted to 150 million barrels, and...
Attanasi, Emil D.; Freeman, Philip A. Commercial possibilities for stranded conventional gas from Alaska's North Slope
Stranded gas resources are defined for this study as gas resources in discrete accumulations that are not currently commercially producible, or producible at full potential, for either physical or economic reasons. Approximately 35 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of stranded gas was identified on Alaska’s North Slope. The commercialization of this...
Attanasi, E.D.; Freeman, P.A.
Assessment of potential additions to conventional oil and gas resources in discovered fields of the United States from reserve growth, 2012
The U.S. Geological Survey estimated volumes of technically recoverable, conventional petroleum resources that have the potential to be added to reserves from reserve growth in 70 discovered oil and gas accumulations of the United States, excluding Federal offshore areas. The mean estimated volumes are 32 billion barrels of crude oil, 291 trillion...
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Date published: March 8, 2019Making Minerals-How Growing Rocks Can Help Reduce Carbon Emissions
Following an assessment of geologic carbon storage potential in sedimentary rocks, the USGS has published a comprehensive review of potential carbon storage in igneous and metamorphic rocks through a process known as carbon mineralization.