The Kansas Class 2 project is an effort to introduce Kansas producers to useful technologies and to demonstrate these technologies in actual oil field operations. In addition, all technologies used as part of the project were adapted to be cost-effective for independent operators of mature fields. The majority of Kansas production is operated by small independent producers that do not have resources to develop and test advanced technologies (90% of the 3,000 Kansas producers have less than 20 employees). For Kansas producer's, access to new technology is important for sustaining production and increasing viability. A major emphasis of the project is collaboration of university scientists and engineers with the independent producers and service companies operating in Kansas to accelerate adaptation and evaluation of new technologies. An extensive technology transfer effort is ongoing. Traditional technology transfer methods (e.g., publications and workshops) are supplemented with a public domain relational database and an online package of project results that is available through the Internet. The goal is to provide the independent complete access to project data, project results and project technology on their desktop.
Project design, methodologies, data, and results are disseminated through focused technology transfer activities. Technology transfer activities include: development of cost-effective technologies and software (e.g. PfEFFER, "Pseudoseismic, Modification of BOAST 3); open-file reports; publication in trade professional, and technical publications; workshops and seminars; and the establishment of public access through the Internet. The target audience includes other operators in the demonstration area, operators of other Mississippian sub-unconformity dolomite reservoirs in Kansas, operators of analogous shallow shelf carbonate reservoirs in the Mid-continent, and technical personnel involved in reservoir development and management.
The majority of Mississippian production in Kansas occurs at
or near the top of the Mississippian section just below the regional
sub-Pennsylvanian unconformity. These reservoirs are a major source
of Kansas oil production and account for approximately 43% (21
million barrels in 1994) of total annual production (Carr et al.,
1995a, Figure 1.1). 
Cumulative
production from Mississippian reservoirs in Kansas exceeds 1 billion
barrels. Today, independent producers, operating many of these
reservoirs and production units, deal with high water cuts and
low recovery factors that place continued operations at or near
economic limits.
This project addressed producibility problems in the numerous Kansas fields such as the Schaben field in Ness County that produce from Meramecian and Osagian dolomites beneath the sub-Pennsylvanian unconformity. Producibility problems in these reservoirs include inadequate reservoir characterization, drilling and completion design problems, and non-optimal primary recovery. Tools and techniques developed as part of the project facilitate integrated, multi-disciplinary reservoir characterization. All technologies used have been adapted to be cost-effective for independent operators of mature fields. Technologies include petrophysical analysis (PfEFFER), visualization (Pseudoseismic), core analysis using NMR, numerical simulation on a PC, and Internet technology transfer. The value of these technologies for independent operators has been demonstrated. All major operators at Schaben have adopted the results of the reservoir management strategy developed as part of the study, and have located and drilled approximately 20 infill locations. Overall results of the incremental wells are very favorable. At the Schaben Demonstration Site, the additional locations resulted in incremental production increases of 200 BOPD from a smaller number of wells.
Equally important is innovative dissemination of the data, methodologies, and results to foster wider application of demonstrated technologies by the numerous operators of similar fields throughout the northern Mid-continent and US.
The Schaben demonstration site consists of 1,720 contiguous acres within Schaben field, located in Township 19 South--Range 21 West, Township 20 South--Range 21 West, and Township 19 South--Range 22 West, Ness County, Kansas (Figure 1.2). The leases comprising the demonstration sites are highlighted in Figure 1.2. This site is located in the upper shelf of the Hugoton Embayment of the Anadarko Basin and produces oil from dolostones and limestones of the lower Meramecian Warsaw Limestone and Osagian Keokuk Limestone (Mississippian) at depths of 4,350-4,410 feet. The site is located on the western flank of the Central Kansas uplift at the western edge of the Mississippian Osagian subcrop beneath the sub-Pennsylvanian unconformity (figures 1.3, 1.4, 1.5), and is typical of numerous other Mississippian fields in Kansas.
Schaben field, discovered in 1963, consists of 78 completed
oil wells spaced primarily on 40-acre locations (Figure
1.3)
. Cumulative field production as
of October 1998 was 9.3 million barrels of oil (BO), and daily
field production was 502 BOPD from 47 wells (Figure 1.2). Compared
to production prior to infill drilling average daily production
has increased approximately 200 BOPD from a smaller number of
producing wells (during 1995 average production was 311 BOPD from
59 wells). From late 1996 through 1998, a total of twenty-two
infill locations were drilled or recompleted at the Schaben Demonstration
Site (Table 1.1). The locations were selected
based on the results of the reservoir management strategy developed
in Budget Period 1. All three major field operators (Ritchie Exploration,
Pickrell Drilling and American Warrior) used the Schaben reservoir
simulation to evaluate multiple locations and select optimum locations.
The In addition to production from the Mississippian,
one well produces oil from the Cherokee Group and the Fort Scott
Limestone, however, the relative volume of oil produced from these
secondary zones is small.
University of Kansas Center for Research Inc., the University of Kansas Energy Research Center, the Kansas Geological Survey, and the Tertiary Oil Recovery Project of Lawrence Kansas, and Ritchie Exploration Inc. of Wichita, Kansas are participating in the project. Total cost sharing in the project is 50 percent.
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