he Permian Basin continues to rank as one of the most
important producing areas in the US. Even with low oil prices,
the Permian continues to receive favourable attention from
operators and investors. This article highlights some observations
from analysing well drilling permit and production data over the past
three years, spanning the peak oil prices in 2013 through the crash
and to present. As with all US production areas, Permian activity
levels have taken a hit, but the data indicates operators continue to
find efficiencies and improve investment potential in this basin.
The area generally considered the Permian Basin extends across
the Texas-New Mexico state line and includes the Delaware and
Midland basins, the Central Platform, and the shelf areas fringing
the basins. For this quick look, all or parts of 38 Texas counties
and parts of 3 New Mexico counties have been selected that cover
this producing area. As public data access becomes more efficient,
desktop tools to help rapidly select, download, and analyse the data
continue to become more robust. The industry has the opportunity
to explore relationships in increasingly large amounts, as well as
details of individual wells. This example provides some interesting
relationships that are enabled by these powerful tools accessing
primarily two main datasets: approved drilling permits and reported
monthly oil and gas volumes for the timeframe of January 2013
through March 2016.
Background
The Permian basin has produced 29 billion bbls
and 75 trillion ft
3
of gas from over 7000 fields, according to
the Texas Railroad Commission. Approximately 180 000 wells
are currently active in the basin. The basin is bounded by the
Marathon Ouachita Fold Belt to the south, the Diablo Platform to
the west and the Matador Arch to the North. It is separated into the
Delaware and the Midland basins by a north-south basement uplift
JAMES KEAY, TED MIRENDA AND STEVE TICHENOR, TGS, USA, DESCRIBE HOW
DATA ANALYTICS PROVIDES INSIGHTS INTO PERMIAN BASIN PERFORMANCE.
COVER STORY
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