MISSISSIPPI NATIONAL FORESTS REASONABLE FORESEEABLE DEVELOPMENT SCENARIO FINAL REPORT: OCTOBER 14, 2005 BLM Eastern States, Milwaukee Field Office TABLE OF CONTENTS: A. Summary ....................................................................................................................................1 B. Introduction ................................................................................................................................1 C. Basis of Analysis ........................................................................................................................2 D. Description of Geology ..............................................................................................................2 E. Past and Present Fluid Mineral Exploration Activity .................................................................7 F. Past and Present Fluid Mineral Development Activity ...............................................................7 G. Future Fluid Mineral Development Potential .............................................................................8 H. Reasonable Foreseeable Development Scenario Assumptions & Discussion ............................10 I. Selected Bibliography .................................................................................................................14 J. Appendices ..................................................................................................................................15 K. Accompanying Maps .................................................................................................................15 L. Contact Information ...................................................................................................................15 A. SUMMARY Findings of the Reasonable Foreseeable Development Scenario (RFDS) include the projected drilling of over 700 wells within National Forest boundaries in the State of Mississippi over the next 15 years. Development of established plays in Mesozoic & Cenozoic sequences will continue to be the primary focus of exploration. As such, much of the future activity is expected to be proximate to existing production. Totals take into account both new starts and the reworking of existing wells and fields, as successful re-completions in other areas have yielded significant increases in production over original rates. Advances in drilling and completion technologies, accompanied by changes in the economic setting are expected to renew interest in regions of the state and in formations that were at one time passed over for development. Pursuit of the largely unexplored Cambro-Ordovician and other deep targets is expected to gain momentum and result in the delineation of large capacity reserves similar to those found in equivalent formations elsewhere. B. INTRODUCTION The Mississippi National Forests (MSNF) Reasonable Foreseeable Development Scenario (RFDS) has been prepared at the request of the USDA Forest Service to support the planning efforts taking place on each of the National Forests in the State of Mississippi. Six National Forests exist, comprised of 9 individually-bounded unit areas (Fig. 1). This report contains projections of what oil and gas exploration and development activity might look like over the planning period of 15 years. Pg 1 of 35 C. BASIS OF ANALYSIS Information presented in this report is a result of the research and analysis completed by Paula Langley and Lucille Tamm of the BLM, Eastern States, Milwaukee Field Office. Research includes the review of papers and articles published in professional and trade journals, books, and from internet sources. Well data was obtained from IHS Energy and used for statistical and site specific analysis of both current and historic exploration and development activity in the state. Well data was obtained from IHS Energy’s well data set. As with any data, a margin of error is ever present and may vary over time. Any statistics presented as a result of queries to the data set can not be seen as a 100% accounting of all wells. The content of this particular data set is derived from multiple sources, including individual well reports prepared by a host of individuals. A significant percentage of the reports where written by scouts while in the field. Consequently, a high degree of data standardization under these circumstances is extremely difficult to achieve regardless of the source; data standardization is key to reliable information retrieval. For example, a query of all wells drilled to the Cambrian requires that a formation at total depth is entered. Within the data pulled for the State of Mississippi on August 1st, 2005, this field was null for 731 wells. Some of these wells were drilled to significant depths implying that they could have reached the Cambrian. Research would be needed to ascertain and add in the missing data. Due to time and resource constraints, this data was bypassed. Statistically, since the data for State of Mississippi contains in excess of 33,000 wells, the overall impact of 731 wells as cited in this example is small. None the less, and especially in the instances where only a limited number of wells are analyzed for a specific play or area, the impact of any data hiatus may be more apparent, and individual well reports not present in the data set may be observable. D. DESCRIPTION OF GEOLOGY Portions of three major sedimentary basins predominate the geologic setting in the State of Mississippi: the Mississippi Embayment, the Black Warrior Basin, and the Mississippi Salt Basin. Each is a regional feature that extends into several states and whose origins are tied to major tectonic events at various times in geologic history. The Mississippi Embayment was the first to form, resulting from Precambrian shear forces, followed by Cambrian rifting. Sediments tied to this feature are found across much of the south and far into the continental interior. Creation of the Black Warrior basin followed later, being connected to the Appalachian / Ouachita mountain-building event. Continental break initiated in the Triassic lead to the creation of the Mississippi Salt Basin, an ancillary rift feature associated with the development of the Gulf Coast Geosyncline. Deposition in the Mississippi Embayment was eventually renewed, as well. Each of these features is further described in the paragraphs that follow. Figure 2 is a diagram showing the approximate locations of the Black Warrior Basin and the Mississippi Salt Basin. Depictions of the Gulf Coast Geosyncline and its strucutures, including the Mississippi Embayment and are presented in Figure 2a. Figure 2: Basin Outlines, taken from Habitat of Oil in Eastern Gulf Coast. Episodes of inundation and erosion throughout geologic time, has led to the deposition of a thick, Pg 2 of 35 complex sedimentary pile that covers the entire state. The stratigraphic column includes rock formations ranging from the Devonian in the extreme northeast corner of the state thru the Paleocene along the southern extent. In general, formations dip to the south and west as a part of sedimentary wedge that thickens in the same directions; refer to Figure 3. Some accounts estimate that approximately 30,000 ft of sediments have accumulated in the thickest segments of the wedge. The Permian is present as a series of metamorphic instrusives that underlay the Wiggins anticline, Jackson Dome, Monroe Arch and Sharkey Dome, as well as a number of other intrusions Selected Mapped Features scattered across several central # Geologic Feature Name Figure 2a: Approximate Location of 23 Monroe Uplift the State of Mississippi & Selected western counties, including 25 Mississippi Structural Trough Features of the Gulf Coast Geosyncline Washington, Issaquena Sharkey, [Adapted from Ewing, 1991, p32]. 26 Mississippi Salt Basin Humphreys (Appendix 11). 27 Jackson Dome 30 Wiggins Anticline Mississippi Embayment The oldest of the three basins within the state is the Mississippi Embayment, whose origin dates back to late Precambrian shear stresses, and to continental rifting in the Cambrian. Thinning and subsidence of the crust resulted in a formation of a graben structure referred to as the Mississippi Structural Trough, also known as the Reelfoot rift, a zone of weakness that extends well into the continental interior and whose expression is echoed in sedimentary deposition through geologic time. The Embayment reaches from the Gulf Coast into the North American continent as far as Illinois, and extends along its southern extent from southwestern Alabama into Texas. Within Mississippi, Mesozoic and Figure 3: Geologic Cross Section NE to SW, taken from Cenozoic formations of the embayment Habitat of Oil in Eastern Gulf Coast. Pg 3 of 35 outcrop in a concentric pattern away from the neighboring Black Warrior Table 1: Formations reported from a well drilled in Basin; Appendix 2. Dips continue to Coahoma Cnty, MS the south and west, and are accompanied by an increasing rate of Formation Depth Geologic Age decent and continual thickening of the Selma 1,762 Upper Cretaceous sedimentary pile. Rocks of the Middle Tuscaloosa 2,539 Upper Cretaceous to Lower Eocene subcrop beneath Pennsylvanian 3,982 Pennsylvanian Quaternary Alluviums along the Chattanooga 10,623 Upper Devonian Mississippi River. The band of Devonian 10,648 Devonian alluvium deposits widens in the central Silurian 11,877 Silurian west and northwest portions of the state, Ordovician 10,997 Ordovician extending to the east in an elongate arc. Knox Cambro-