Evaluation of Cretaceous and Jurassic shales in the Burgos Basin, Mexico
Abstract
Successful activities in the Eagle Ford shale in Texas through drilling of horizontal wells and completions using multi-stage hydraulic fracturing jobs suggest that the potential of shale reservoirs south of the border will be quite significant.
This observation leads to the objective of this study: to integrate available geoscience and engineering data to evaluate the potential of Mexican shales, and their oil and gas endowment under different oil and gas prices scenarios. Endowment is defined by the United States Geological Survey (USGS, 2010) as the sum of known volumes of oil and gas (cumulative production plus remaining reserves) and undiscovered volumes.
Emphasis is placed on the Upper Cretaceous Eagle Ford shale and the Upper Pimienta shale in Burgos basin, located just south of the border with Texas (United States). Other shales considered in this study are found in the Sabinas, Tampico, Tuxpan (Platform), Veracruz and Chihuahua basins throughout Mexico. The economic potential of these plays is examined with the use of cumulative long run supply (or availability) curves.
It is concluded that the potential of unconventional resources in Mexico is quite significant and will help to change the slope of production rates in the country from negative to positive. As a result, it is anticipated that Mexico will become an important part of the shale petroleum revolution initiated in the United States.
Description
Keywords
Engineering--Petroleum
Citation
Cruz Luque, M. M. (2017). Evaluation of Cretaceous and Jurassic shales in the Burgos Basin, Mexico (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25985