Near East University

Institute of Graduate Study

The Department of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering

Geology, Oil and Gas Distribution in New Mexico

Ra’ed Khalil
20203564
Introduction
This report presents the geology and distribution of Oil and Gas in New Mexico, New
Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States; its capital is Santa Fe, which was founded in
1610 as capital of Nuevo México, while its largest city is Albuquerque with its
accompanying metropolitan area. It is one of the Mountain States of the Southern Rocky
Mountains, and shares the Four Corners region of the Western U.S. with Utah, Colorado,
and Arizona. New Mexico is also bordered by the state of Texas to the east-
southeast, Oklahoma to the northeast, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua to the south
and Sonora to the southwest. With a population of 2,120,220 as of the 2020 U.S. Census, New
Mexico is the 36th largest state by population. With a total area of 121,590 sq mi (314,900 km2),
it is the fifth-largest and sixth-least densely populated of the 50 states. Due to their geographic
locations, northern and eastern New Mexico exhibit a colder alpine climate, while western and
southern New Mexico exhibit a warmer arid climate; the Rio Grande and its fertile valley runs
from north-to-south creating a riparian climate in the middle of the state, supplying central New
Mexico with its bosque (gallery forest) and distinct Albuquerque Basin climate.
Importance of Oil & Gas in New Mexico
New Mexico has been a major producer of oil and natural gas since hydrocarbons were first discovered in the
state during the early 1920's. In 2016, New Mexico produced 145 million barrels of oil, 1.27 trillion cubic feet
of natural gas, and 97 billion cubic feet of naturally occurring carbon dioxide. These valuable commodities are
obtained from more than 2,000 oil and gas fields. In recent years the State of New Mexico derived more than
25% of its general fund revenues from taxes and royalties on oil, natural gas, and carbon dioxide production.
These taxes and royalties have contributed more than 90% of the principal in the Severance Tax and Land
Grant Permanent Funds, the earnings on which are used to fund education and other state government
operations. Other petroleum tax receipts are placed directly in the state's general budget. In addition, more
than 11,000 citizens of this state are directly employed by the oil and gas industry. The oil and gas industry,
while primarily occupying the sparsely populated southeast and northwest areas of New Mexico, is a lynchpin
of the state's economy and is fiscally essential.
Objectives of the study

The purpose of this study is to develop geologically based hypotheses

regarding the potential for additions to oil and gas reserves in priority areas
of the United States, in additions, to support the potential for undiscovered
oil resources and good potential for undiscovered gas resources. This
assessment is based on geologic principles and uses the total petroleum
system concept. The geologic elements of a total petroleum system include
hydrocarbon source rocks (source rock maturation, hydrocarbon generation
and migration), reservoir rocks (sequence stratigraphy and petrophysical
properties), and hydrocarbon traps (trap formation and timing). The USGS
used this geologic framework to define one total petroleum system and five
assessment units.
Oil and Gas Production Rate

Oil and gas wells do not produce at a

constant rate. As soon as a well is drilled for
oil or natural gas, the rate of production
begins to decline, as shown in the graph
located below this text box. Production
rates within the state can only be sustained
through ongoing exploration and drilling
programs. Because of this, the New Mexico
Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources
(NMBGMR) undertakes several types of
research and service projects that are aimed
at providing ideas and information to help
sustain production in the state.
Annual New Mexico Oil Production
From original discovery in 1924 annual New Mexico oil production peaked at 129
million bbls per year in 1969 and then settled into a long decline that was ameliorated in
the 1980's and 1990's by the discovery of new trends in the Permian Basin,
redevelopment of underdeveloped fields, and implementation of enhanced recovery
projects in existing, older fields. The recent upswing in oil production has been due
to horizontal drilling and adaptation of hydraulic fracturing methods to horizontal
wells in unconventional deep basinal reservoirs in southern Eddy and southwestern Lea
counties. The result of this activity was a new annual peak for oil production at 147
million bbls in 2015, 14% more than old production high in 1969.
Frontier Basin Research
There are many examples in New Mexico where basins of different ages
overlap, thus not all basins or other areas with exploration potential are
shown here. This is a list of basins and areas that have attracted exploration
activities by the private sector and lists of our publications and reports that
pertain to these basins and areas. Perhaps more importantly, research
activities in frontier basins have been aimed at developing an understanding
of the geology of these basins which is often not well understood, especially
in the subsurface. Development of basic geologic understanding is helpful for
many non-petroleum related activities such as deep saline and brackish
groundwater assessments and the understanding of geothermal energy
potential.
• Chama Basin (Rio Arriba County)
• Albuquerque Basin (Bernalillo, Sandoval, Socorro, Valencia
Counties; Memoir 33) and other Rio Grande Rift basins
• Zuni/Gallup Basin (McKinley, Cibola Counties)
• St. Johns CO2 area (Catron County)
• Jornada Del Muerto Basin (Socorro County)
• Acoma/Lucero Basin (Cibola, Socorro, Catron Counties)
• Pedregosa Basin (Hidalgo, Grant Counties)
• Devonian shales in southern New Mexico basins 
• Las Vegas Basin (Mora and San Miguel Counties; Memoir 48)
• Dalhart Basin (Union County)
• Tucumcari Basin (Guadalupe, Quay, Curry, San Miguel
Counties; Bulletin 119(
• Sin Nombre area - the divide between the Tucumcari and
Permian Basins 
• Estancia Basin (Torrance Country)
• Tularosa/Orogrande Basin/Otero Mesa Area (Otero
Country)
• Chupadera Mesa area of Socorro and Lincoln Counties,
including the Carrizozo Basin)
 Producing Basins Research
• The Mancos Shale in the San Juan Basin.
• Play Analysis and Digital Portfolio of Major Oil Reservoirs in the Permian Basin (in
cooperation with the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology) . Open-file report 479
summarizes the oil reservoirs and plays in the New Mexico part of the basin.
Texas Bureau of Economic Geology Report of Investigations 271 summarizes the
project results for the entire basin.
• Oil and natural gas potential of the Secretary of the Interior's Potash Area, Eddy
County, New Mexico (Permian Basin).
• Underdeveloped oil fields in upper Pennsylvanian and Permian carbonate
reservoirs, Permian Basin (references)
• Risk reduction in petroleum exploration with a fuzzy expert system. This project
has resulted in Open-file report 485 on Silurian reservoirs of the Wristen
Formation and source rocks of the Devonian Woodford Shale in the New Mexico
part of the Permian Basin.
• New Mexico Oil & Gas Pool maps and Morrow Play Database (Circular 209)
• San Juan Basin 20-year Reasonable Foreseeable Development (Open-file report
463)
• Bravo Dome CO2 field research
Methodologies used to find hydrocarbons
There are three (3) primary methodologies used to find hydrocarbons in the
subsurface:
•Geophysical.
•Remote Sensing.
•Wildcatting.
GEOPHYSICAL SURVEYS
Geophysical techniques used for petroleum exploration utilize
equipment to measure such things as: electrical currents,
gravitational and magnetic anomalies, heat flow, geochemical
relationships, and density variations from deep within the earth.
Each technique records a different set of characteristics which can
be used to locate hydrocarbons beneath the surface of the earth.
REMOTE SENSING

Remote Sensing (RS) is the use of aerial photographs to

locate and map surface features. Increasing use of satellite
imagery is being made because it shows large areas on the
surface of the earth. Even though the photographs are taken
form several hundred miles up in space, they are able to
show features only a few feet in size. And satellite imagery
not only indicates what the human eye can see, but they can
also reveal subtle variations in soil moisture, mineral and
vegetation distribution, and soil type, all of which are import
pieces to the exploration puzzle.
WILDCAT

A wildcat well is one that is drilled in a new area where no

other wells exist and generally with scant information. It is
drilled in an effort to locate undiscovered accumulation of
hydrocarbons. About 1 in 10 wildcat wells strike oil or gas,
but only one in perhaps 50 locate economically significant
amounts. Many wildcat wells are drilled on a hunch, intuition,
or a small amount of geology. Many times they are based on
photography and experience in a particular area. Wildcat
wells are generally drilled at a smaller diameter than normal
because this saves money (the average onshore well at
present costs about 10 MM dollars to drill).
Outcomes

The results of the assessment of undiscovered gas resources in the Lewis

Continuous Gas Assessment Unit (AU 50220261) are presented in appendix
B. Allocations of those resources to State and various Federal lands are 26
Total Petroleum Systems and Geologic Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and
Gas Resources in the San Juan Basin Province in appendix A. The Monte Carlo
simulations, verified by the analytical probability method, provide the
following results for the assessment unit. In the Lewis Continuous Gas
Assessment Unit (AU 50220261), for continuous gas resources, there is an
F95 of 8,315.22 BCFG and an F5 of 12,282.31 BCFG, with a mean value of
10,177.24 BCFG. There is an F95 of 18.08 MMBNGL and an F5 of 47.32
MMBNGL, with a mean of 30.53 MMBNGL.
Implications
Environmental and livelihood implications of oil exploration The oil industry, especially
the exploration of oil, has destructive environmental impacts or what Watts (2001) refers to
as engendering ecological violence. Oil extraction involves several environmental pollution
processes (Sebastián et al 2001). A UNCTAD (2007) report indicates that oil and gas
exploration impact on the environment in many negative ways by exposing it to oil leakages
and spills, gas flaring, and deforestation as a result of the creation of access routes to new
areas. Gas flaring without temperature or emissions control pollutes the air (Hurtig and
Sebastián 2002) and releases unacceptably high levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
(US Non-Governmental Delegation to the Niger Delta 1999). In Ogoniland for example, two
independent studies have revealed that total petroleum hydrocarbons in the streams located
there are between 360 and 680 times the European Community permissible levels (Watts
2001: 196). Oil spillages are also quite frequent in oil fields in the global south. According to
the UNCTAD (2007) report, between 2000 and 2004, there were as many as 5,400 officially
recorded oil spillages in the Niger Delta alone. Further studies show that these spills are far
more frequent in the global south than in the global north. Between 1982 and 1992, for
example, 37% of Shell’s spills worldwide occurred in the Niger Delta (Watts 2001: 196).
Key references
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico
https://geoinfo.nmt.edu/resources/petroleum/
References Cited Beaumont, E.C., Dane, C.H., and Sears, J.D., 1956, Revised nomenclature of Mesaverde Group in San Juan Basin, New
Mexico: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 40, p. 2149–2162.
Beaumont, E.C., and Hoffman, G.K., 1992, Relationships between the Upper Coal Member of the Menefee Formation, the La Ventana
Tongue, and the Lewis Shale in the southeastern San Juan Basin, in Lucas, S.G., Kues, B.S., Williamson, T.E., and Hunt, A.P., eds., San
Juan Basin IV: New Mexico Geological Society, 43rd Field Conference Guidebook, p. 207–216.
Bereskin, B., 2003, Geological and production attributes of “shale” reservoirs, San Juan Basin, U.S.A., in Bereskin, B., and Mavor, M.,
eds., Shale gas geology and engineering— An overview: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Short Course Notes, Annual
Meeting, Salt Lake City Utah, May 2003, 44 p. (section 1).
Fassett, J.E., 1983, Stratigraphy and oil and gas production of northwest New Mexico updated through 1983, in Fassett, J.E., ed., Oil and
Gas Fields of the Four Corners Area, vol. III: Four Corners Geological Society, p. 849–865.
Geology, Sequence Stratigraphy, and Oil and Gas Assessment of the Lewis Shale Total Petroleum System, San Juan Basin, New Mexico
and Colorado By R.F. Dubiel