In-Person
Where: The Petroleum Club of Shreveport, 15th floor
Cost: $25
If you’d like a seat, kindly use the form below to make your reservation by the preceding Friday.
We encourage members to invite guests, spouses, and friends to any of our meetings.
Virtual
Where: Zoom
(starting at 12:00PM)
Cost: $10
If you’d like to attend virtually, please pay with a credit card below and use the email address where you would like Zoom login details sent. Please make your reservation to attend virtually by noon the day before the meeting.
Biography
Kurt Ley
Kurt Ley has over 40 years of oil and gas prospect generation experience in the Ark-La-Tex, Southeast Texas, South Louisiana, and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. He specializes in developing prospects in mature producing areas with bypassed reserves.
After receiving a BS in Geology from Louisiana Tech University in 1981, Kurt began his career with Superior Oil Company in Lafayette, Louisiana. Eventual moves to Tenneco Oil and Apache in Houston, Texas, led to assignments in Southeast Texas and South Louisiana. While at Apache, he had the opportunity to perform field studies on multiple producing properties that led to the drilling of over 100 development wells. After moving back to Shreveport, Kurt became Exploration Manager for Stroud Production. While at Stroud, the re-development of High Island Field began. After monetizing High Island in 2007, Kurt co-founded Kingwood Exploration with his Engineering partner Robert Braswell. Since 2007, Kingwood has been an active prospect generator, re-developing mature producing properties mainly in Southeast Texas.
Kurt currently serves on the board of the Shreveport Geological Society and is also a past president. He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Houston Geological Society, and a certified Professional Geologist in the state of Louisiana.
Abstract
Southeast Texas remains an attractive area for conventional exploration and production. Relatively low lease costs, a favorable opinion of the oil and gas industry by most residents, and the proximity to infrastructure and refineries, make prospecting in this area ideal for the independent oil and gas operator. Oil and gas production in Southeast Texas is Tertiary in age, with the oldest production being in the Wilcox, and the youngest production being in the Fleming (Miocene).
This presentation will focus on the re-development of 4 mature oil fields: High Island, McFaddin Ranch, Alligator Bayou, and South Double Bayou. These four fields are in the prolific Houston Embayment, that extends along the Texas Gulf Coast from Jefferson County westward to Matagorda County. The embayment area is structurally dominated by salt domes and roll over anticlines that occur on the downthrown sides of large growth fault systems, that parallel the ancient shoreline. The oil and gas reservoirs in these four oil fields consist of Frio and Miocene aged sandstones, that are interbedded with shale and are part of progradational delta systems that were active at the time of deposition. This structural and stratigraphic setting lends itself to prospects that contain stacked pays in multiple oil and gas reservoirs. Over the years, High Island, McFaddin Ranch, Alligator Bayou, and South Double Bayou played out and portions or all of these mature fields were abandoned by their prior operators.
Detailed subsurface geological, geophysical, and reservoir engineering studies on each of these fields uncovered multiple, attic oil prospects that led to a successful re-development program in each field.
