Utah Geological Survey Wins Grant To Study Method of Increasing Oil Production in Paradox Basin

Utah’s Paradox Basin, which extends into portions of Colorado and Arizona, contains more than 75 small oil fields, each capable of producing 2 to 10 million barrels of oil. But variations in the reservoirs of these fields prevent recovery of up to 75 percent of that resource, using conventional extraction methods.

The Utah Geological Survey, with a newly approved $1.03 million grant funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and private industry, will conduct a 5-year study of a method to extract as much as another 50 million barrels of oil from existing wells in the basin.

The DOE, in announcing the grant, said, "The oil industry in the United States is increasingly an industry of smaller companies, many of which are family-owned businesses. These companies account for nearly half the oil produced in the lower 48 states. Our support will help them develop and deploy technologies that otherwise would probably never make it into the oil field, certainly not on a widespread basis. Our hope is that these projects will show hundreds of other small companies ways to keep their wells flowing."

The management and technical team, headed by UGS senior scientist Thomas C. Chidsey, Jr., will include Seeley Oil Company of Salt Lake City, the Colorado Geological Survey, and Eby Petrography & Consulting, Inc. They will conduct detailed reservoir studies to determine horizontal drilling techniques that can increase well productivity without causing further surface disturbance. In addition, the project will be guided by a technical advisory board, comprised of industry partners who are currently operators of fields in the basin, and a stake-holders board, comprised of representatives from state government, the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Tribe, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.