Improved recovery from Gulf of Mexico reservoirs. Quarterly status report, February 14, 1995--March 30, 1995

The Gulf of Mexico Basin offers the greatest near-term potential for reducing the future decline in domestic oil and gas production. The Basin is less mature than productive on-shore areas, large unexplored areas remain, and there is great potential for reducing bypassed oil in known fields. Much of the remaining oil in the offshore is trapped in formations that are extremely complex due to intrusions of salt domes. Significant innovations have been made in seismic processing and reservoir simulation. In addition, significant advances have been made in deviated and horizontal drilling technologies. Effective application of these technologies along with improved integrated resource management methods offer opportunities to significantly increase Gulf of Mexico production, delay platform abandonments, and preserve access to a substantial remaining oil target for both exploratory drilling and advanced recovery processes. On February 18, 1992, Louisiana State University (the Prime Contractor) with two technical subcontractors, BDM, Inc. and ICF, Inc., began a research program to estimate the potential oil and gas reserve additions that could result from the application of advanced secondary and enhanced oil recovery technologies and the exploitation of undeveloped and attic oil zones in the Gulf of Mexico oil fields that are related to piercement salt domes. This project is a one year continuation of this research and will continue work in reservoir description, extraction processes, and technology transfer. Detailed data will be collected for two previously studied reservoirs: a South Marsh Island reservoir operated by Taylor Energy and a South Pelto reservoir operated by Mobil