The overall objective of this project is to demonstrate that a development program based on advanced reservoir management methods can significantly improve oil recovery at the Nash Draw Pool (NDP). The plan includes developing a control area using standard reservoir management techniques and comparing its performance to an area developed using advanced reservoir management methods. Specific goals are (1) to demonstrate that an advanced development drilling and pressure maintenance program can significantly improve oil recovery compared to existing technology applications and (2) to transfer these advanced methodologies to oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin and elsewhere throughout the U.S. oil and gas industry.

The Nash Draw Brushy Canyon Pool (NDP) in southeast New Mexico is one of the nine projects selected in 1995 by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for participation in the Class III Reservoir Field Demonstration Program. The goals of the DOE cost-shared Class Program are to: (1) extend economic production, (2) increase ultimate recovery, and (3) broaden information exchange and technology application. Reservoirs in the Class III Program are focused on slope basin and deep-basin clastic depositional types. Production at the NDP is from the Brushy Canyon formation, a low-permeability turbidite reservoir in the Delaware Mountain Group of Permian, Guadalupian age. A major challenge in this marginal-quality reservoir is to distinguish oil-productive pay intervals from water-saturated non-pay intervals. Because initial reservoir pressure is only slightly above bubble-point pressure, rapid oil decline rates and high gas/oil ratios are typically observed in the first year of primary production. Limited surface access, caused by the proximity of underground potash mining and surface playa lakes, prohibits development with conventional drilling. Reservoir characterization results obtained to date at the NDP show that a proposed pilot injection area appears to be compartmentalized. Because reservoir discontinuities will reduce effectiveness of a pressure maintenance project, the pilot …

From introduction: The purpose of this survey was to document the pre-event and post-event condition of all existing surface facilities within a 10-mile radius of ground zero for Project GNOME.