Wattenberg Gas Field
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The Wattenberg Gas Field is a large producing area of
natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
and condensate in the
Denver Basin The Denver Basin, variously referred to as the Julesburg Basin, Denver-Julesburg Basin (after Julesburg, Colorado), or the D-J Basin, is a geology, geologic structural basin centered in eastern Colorado in the United States, but extending into sou ...
of central
Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
, USA. Discovered in 1970, the field was one of the first places where massive
hydraulic fracturing Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, fracing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of Formation (geology), formations in bedrock by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the ...
was performed routinely and successfully on thousands of wells. The field now covers more than 2,000 square miles between the cities of Denver and Greeley, and includes more than 23,000 wells producing from a number of
Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...
formations. The bulk of the field is in Weld County, but it extends into Adams, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, and Larimer Counties.


Geology

The reservoir rocks are Cretaceous
sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...
s,
shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...
s, and
limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
s deposited under marine conditions in the
Western Interior Seaway The Western Interior Seaway (also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, the North American Inland Sea, or the Western Interior Sea) was a large inland sea (geology), inland sea that existed roughly over the present-day Great Plains of ...
. The gas and condensate is contained within Cretaceous formations in the deepest part of the
Denver Basin The Denver Basin, variously referred to as the Julesburg Basin, Denver-Julesburg Basin (after Julesburg, Colorado), or the D-J Basin, is a geology, geologic structural basin centered in eastern Colorado in the United States, but extending into sou ...
, where the rocks were subject to enough heat and pressure to generate oil and gas from organic material in the rock. The field is a
stratigraphic trap In petroleum geology, a trap is a geological structure affecting the reservoir rock and caprock of a petroleum system allowing the accumulation of hydrocarbons in a reservoir. Traps can be of two types: stratigraphic or structural. Structural tra ...
, basin-centered gas field. Most of the gas-producing formations are considered
tight gas Tight gas is commonly used to refer to natural gas produced from reservoir rocks with such low permeability that massive hydraulic fracturing is necessary to produce the well at economic rates. The gas is sealed in very impermeable and hard rocks ...
, having low natural permeability. Although the field today is in the deepest part of the basin, an unconformity at the base of the
Pierre Shale The Pierre Shale is a geologic formation or series in the Upper Cretaceous which occurs east of the Rocky Mountains in the Great Plains, from Pembina Valley in Canada to New Mexico. The Pierre Shale was described by Fielding Bradford Meek, Meek a ...
shows that the field is on an early paleohigh active in the Middle Cretaceous.


Discovery and development

Although numerous wells had drilled through the Wattenberg Field over the decades, and many drillers and wellsite geologists noticed gas “shows” (indications) in the "J" Sandstone and other strata, the "J" Sandstone and other gas-bearing formations had permeability too low to yield gas in commercial quantities.
Core sample A core sample is a cylindrical section of (usually) a naturally-occurring substance. Most core samples are obtained by drilling with special drills into the substance, such as sediment or rock, with a hollow steel tube, called a core drill. The ...
s indicated the "J" Sandstone was similar to the
Lower Cretaceous Lower may refer to: * ''Lower'' (album), 2025 album by Benjamin Booker * Lower (surname) * Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) * Lower Wick Gloucestershire, England See also * Nizhny {{Disambiguation ...
Dakota Sandstone The Dakota is a sedimentary rock, sedimentary geologic unit name of Formation (stratigraphy), formation and Group (stratigraphy), group rank in Midwestern North America. The Dakota units are generally composed of sandstones, mudstones, clays, and ...
reservoir in the
San Juan Basin The San Juan Basin is a geologic structural basin located near the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. The basin covers 7,500 square miles and resides in northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, and parts of Utah a ...
. This was supported with the Aug. 1967 discovery of the Roundup Field. Additionally, examination of
outcrop An outcrop or rocky outcrop is a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth and other terrestrial planets. Features Outcrops do not cover the majority of the Earth's land surface because in most p ...
s and electrical logs showed the "J" Sandstone to be a delta-front sandstone.
Amoco Amoco ( ) is a brand of filling station, fuel stations operating in the United States and owned by British conglomerate BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and petroleum, oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company i ...
geologist Pete Matuszczak noticed that all the wells drilled over a large area recorded noncommercial gas shows, with no water, through the "J" Sandsone (also called the Muddy Sandstone) on the mudlogs, cores, and drillstem tests. He suggested that the area might be made to produce large economic quantities if the wells were treated with the new method of massive hydraulic fracturing, which Amoco was using successfully in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico. Drilling started in 1970, and wells were completed in the J Sandstone, at depths from 7350 to 8500 feet. Drilling deep gas also fortuitously found conventional oil in places in the shallower Terry and Hygiene sandstones. The D Sandstone, another conventional reservoir, also produces in limited areas within Wattenberg. Additional producing formations were added to the field. Starting in 1981, operators discovered that the Codell Sandstone would yield economic quantities of oil and gas if hydraulically fractured. Hundreds of new wells were drilled and completed in the Codell in the early 1980s; the Codell was often co-completed with the overlying Niobrara Formation. Additional wells were drilled and hydraulically fractured in the Plainview and Lytle formations, below the J Sandstone. The initial spacing of one "J" Sandstone well per 320 acres was found insufficient to drain the reservoir, so the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission approved infill wells. Gas wells in Wattenberg were drilled vertically until 2009, when operators discovered that horizontal wells drilled in the chalk of the
Niobrara Formation The Niobrara Formation , also called the Niobrara Chalk, is a geologic formation in North America that was deposited between 87 and 82 million years ago during the Coniacian, Santonian, and Campanian stages of the Late Cretaceous. It is com ...
yielded better quantities of gas and condensate, setting off a new round of drilling.


Production and reserves

In 1973, the field was thought to contain 1.1 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas. Through 2008, the Wattenberg Field had produced 2.8 trillion cubic feet of gas, and an estimated 5.2 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas remained. In 2013, the US
Energy Information Administration The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and pub ...
listed Wattenberg as the 9th largest gas field in the US in terms of remaining proved
gas reserves Oil and gas reserves denote ''discovered'' quantities of crude oil and natural gas from known fields that can be profitably produced/recovered from an approved development. Oil and gas reserves tied to approved operational plans filed on the da ...
, 4th in remaining proved oil/condensate reserves. As of March 2018, the field was producing 1.92 billion cubic feet of gas and 331 thousand barrels of oil and condensate per day, from more than 23,000 active wells. More than 40 companies operate wells in Wattenberg. , the five largest producers of oil and gas in the field were:
Kerr-McGee The Kerr-McGee Corporation, founded in 1929, was an American energy company involved in oil exploration, production of crude oil, natural gas, perchlorate and uranium mining and milling in various countries. On June 23, 2006, Anadarko Petroleu ...
,
Noble Energy Noble Energy, Inc. was a company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration headquartered in Houston, Texas. In October 2020, the company was acquired by Chevron Corporation. The company was known as Noble Affiliates, Inc. until 2002. As of December ...
, PDC Energy,
Extraction Oil and Gas Extraction may refer to: Science and technology Biology and medicine * Comedo extraction, a method of acne treatment * Dental extraction, the surgical removal of a tooth from the mouth Computing and information science * Data extraction, the pro ...
, and SRC Energy. Together, the top five producing companies produced 84 percent of the total gas produced in 2017.Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission
website
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References

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