James Lime

The Integrated Reservoir Solutions division of Core Laboratories is offering to interested operators participation in a project designed to optimize operators’ exploration and exploitation of James Lime reservoirs in the East Texas and North Louisiana areas, with a possible extension to south Mississippi. This play is maturing with mixed results from the horizontal wells in tight sections and a general poor understanding of what makes a good well. Recent discussions with several operators in the trend indicate that many operators are having common problems in locating the “sweet spots” for production in the trend and in their the formation evaluation and reservoir characterization. These technical issues include but are not limited to the following:

• What is controlling production in the James Lime? Is it depositional facies, natural fractures, thin permeable “sweet zones”, or a combination?
• How can we differentiate good reservoirs and areas from the non-commercial areas?
• What are pay recognition criteria from logs for the James Lime and how much gas is in place? Where is the water coming from?
• If production is related to natural fractures, what are the fracture spacing, orientation and areas favorable for development?
• What is the optimal fracture stimulation design(s) to maximize production?
• How can production performance be predicted to aid in completion decisions?

These problems can only be solved from the geological, petrophysical and completion/stimulation analysis and evaluation of wells with either conventional cores or rotary sidewall cores. The resultant data can be used to calibrate open-hole logs in order to better predict rock types and petrophysical properties essential for formation evaluation and proper well completion and stimulation designs. The rock types and their measured petrophysical properties can also serve as analogs when evaluating new reservoirs in wildcats or field step outs.

• Available in RAPIDLink™