PLAY FAIRWAY ANALYSIS FOR REGIONAL SCREENING OF MULTI-RESOURCE POTENTIAL IN SEDIMENTARY BASINS: EVALUATING POTENTIAL FOR GEOTHERMAL, CARBON STORAGE, AND LITHIUM IN BRINES

Geological resources critical to the energy transition, such as sedimentary geothermal, carbon storage potential, and lithium in brines, often struggle for economic feasibility as standalone developments but become increasingly viable when the potential for more than one of these resources coexist in the same reservoir. Subsurface geophysical, geochemical, temperature, and pressure datasets were analyzed and integrated with finite element numerical basin modeling to evaluate the primary factors that impact the distribution of these resources in the onshore Gulf of Mexico basin, the largest sedimentary basin in the United States. Subsurface temperature, pressure, brine composition (Li content), and reservoir quality in sixteen depositional units have been visualized using common risk segment (CRS) mapping to high-grade areas where multiple resources likely coexist spatially within the same unit. Three categories denote the level of potential resource that have been assigned to each primary factor. For sedimentary geothermal, low, moderate, and high potential areas are defined as those with temperatures <90°C, 90-150°C, and >150°C, respectively. For CO₂ storage, high potential areas exhibit supercritical CO₂ conditions up to 80% of the fracture gradient. Areas between 80% and 100% of the fracture gradient are considered to exhibit moderate potential and areas where the fracture gradient is equal or greater than 100% are considered to have low potential. For lithium concentration, low, moderate, and high potential is defined by concentrations of <100 ppm, 100-200 ppm, and >200 ppm, respectively. Reservoir quality affects the viability of all three of these resources and is determined by the gross depositional environment (GDE) maps created for each unit in the model: individual depositional environment polygons are categorized as high, medium, or low potential according to the quality of reservoirs they may contain. The resulting CRS maps can be used for regional scale screening evaluations of these resources and identify areas of interest where more detailed, prospect-scale studies can be undertaken.