THE UTAH CORE RESEARCH CENTER COLLECTION: A VALUABLE RESOURCE FOR UINTA BASIN HYDROCARBON RESEARCH STUDIES

The Utah Geological Survey’s (UGS) Utah Core Research Center (UCRC) offers access to the most comprehensive collection of Uinta Basin core, cuttings and oil samples for petroleum-industry and university research, workshops, and cooperative industry/UGS projects. The UCRC is fortunate to have research-quality Uinta Basin core collections ideally suited for study of low-permeability, gas-bearing sandstones of the Cretaceous Mesaverde Group and the highly oil-productive Eocene rocks of the Green River Formation. Other UCRC cores allow evaluation of developing gas plays within the Cretaceous Mancos Shale and the oil shales of the Green River Formation.

Natural Buttes field, the largest and most active natural gas field in Utah, has produced over 2.1 trillion cubic feet from low-permeability Mesaverde Group sandstones with natural fractures. The UCRC collection includes Mesaverde cores with classic depositional, petrophysical, and geomechanical characteristics that are used to create reservoir models and simulations for hydraulic fracturing.

More than 450 million barrels of oil have been produced from the Green River and Colton Formations. Green River cores in the UCRC collection are studied to improve primary and secondary hydrocarbon recovery techniques through more sophisticated characterization of fluvial-deltaic lacustrine reservoirs.

Potential shale-gas reservoirs of the Mancos Shale may be more then 1500 feet thick and have tremendous untapped potential. Mancos cores in the UCRC collection are used to define and recommend best practices to complete and stimulate these frontier gas shales, reducing development costs and maximizing gas recovery.

UGS research suggests that the potential economic resource from Utah’s oil shale deposits is approximately 77 billion barrels of oil. The UCRC collection includes outstanding, high-quality oil shale core from the upper Green River Formation. The oil shale core is used in detailed geological characterization studies and the development of new extractive techniques.