AN INTEGRATED SCREENING APPROACH TO SUPPORT CARBON SEQUESTRATION EFFORTS IN KANSAS: 3D FAULTED FRAMEWORK MODEL OF THE ARBUCKLE GROUP & PRECAMBRIAN BASEMENT

To develop a better and regional understanding of the presence/absence, thickness, and structural elements of the Arbuckle Group, an integrated approach was initiated to generate a 3D faulted framework model for the subsurface of the state of Kansas. Our initial statewide products have focused on the Precambrian basement and Cambro-Ordovician Arbuckle Group. The goal is to provide a statewide basis for evaluation and comparison of the primary play elements necessary for a successful carbon sequestration project within the Arbuckle Group.

The Arbuckle Group, deposited during the Cambrian to Early Ordovician as a part of the North American craton-wide Sauk sequence, primarily consists of shallow-water to shelf carbonates. It is bounded at the base and the top by regional unconformities and is affected by two major structural uplifts in Kansas, the Nemaha uplift and the Central Kansas Uplift. The Arbuckle Group accounts for approximately 40% of the petroleum production in Kansas and continues to be a target reservoir for exploration and wastewater injection. Though it has been producing for over 100 years, the last detailed structural and stratigraphic statewide Arbuckle Group map was generated in the 1960’s. Since then, thousands of wells have been drilled, full log suites and cores acquired, and better 2D-3D seismic data acquired.

The current approach uses ~70,000 Arbuckle and ~5,000 Precambrian basement well tops to build a 3D faulted framework model for the subsurface of Kansas that honors the well top data in addition to the Arbuckle isochore generated from wells penetrating both the Arbuckle and the Precambrian basement. Additional data including well logs, earthquake hypocenter data, seismic data, new wells/core/cuttings, and gravity data, will be used iteratively to update and improve the existing model. This study includes a county-by-county analysis of Arbuckle reservoir bulk volume, porosity, seal presence (Chattanooga and Maquoketa shales), seal quality/thickness and depth below surface, among other statistics, for all the 105 counties in the state of Kansas.