Located on the western section of the Permian Basin, the Delaware Basin covers a 6.4M acre area. It is the deepest of the Permian subbasins with the thickest deposits of rock. It is heavily faulted compared to the Central Basin Platform and Midland Basin with overpressured reservoirs on the eastern side. Primary targets in the basin are the organic-rich units within the Wolfcamp and Bone Spring groups, with the latter having more localized, turbidity-driven deposition.
The Delaware Basin region is also well known for Guadalupe Mountains National Park, a fossilized reef exposed at the surface, and Carlsbad Caverns
In addition to its vast oil and gas reservoirs, there are a wide variety of subsurface natural resources in the region, including major sylvite formations that yield a steady supply of potassium salts (potash), a byproduct of which is rock salt. The arid conditions of the New Mexico and Texas state line provide a source of sand, which operators use as proppant for hydraulic fracturing. As much as 10 barrels of water are produced for every barrel of oil in the Delaware Basin, however, the high salt content makes produced water unsuitable for fracturing, requiring operators to dispose of saltwater through injection wells.
The introduction of horizontal drilling has revitalized interest in the Wolfcamp and introduced the Bone Spring as the money-making formation of the Delaware Basin. It is a thick package of alternating sands, shales, and carbonate intervals.
Horizontal development unleashed an enormous amount of production from the basin, growing it from about 80 Mbbl/d at the beginning of 2010 to over 2.1 MMbbl/d a decade later. While the basin has shown great potential in terms of resource and economics, the basin’s structural varied lithological complexities have led to a wide disparity in results across the play, much of which is driven by parent-child well interactions both within and across landing zones.
Decreasing horizontal and vertical spacing between parent and child wells coupled with cemented carbonates in the subsurface are leading companies to investigate interwell pressure communication across zones in order to mitigate the economic impact of hydraulic fracturing on producing wells (frac hits).
The oil rich deposits of the Bone Spring Formation are primarily targeted in New Mexico’s Eddy and Lea Counties. Because this region is comprised of Federal lands, the 2021 ban on new drilling will enable producers to continue drilling for wells permitted before the ban. The ban is not expected to impact overall drilling activity in the Delaware Basin.
Operator | Oil (Mbbl) | Gas (Mmcf) | BOE (Mboe) |
362 | 1,900 | 545 | |
404 | 1,595 | 512 | |
213 | 1,193 | 406 | |
249 | 1,000 | 274 | |
109 | 850 | 249 | |
143 | 1,800 | 229 | |
106 | 638 | 212 | |
152 | 895 | 203 | |
198 | 1,400 | 175 | |
83 | 423 | 99 | |
84 | 794 | 75 | |
40 | 200 | 71 | |
56 | 219 | 65 | |
190 | 1,100 | 56 | |
32 | 89 | 47 |
County | State | Population | Land Area | Land Area | Surface |
Texas | 9,340 | 6,184 | 16,020 | 0.13% | |
New Mexico | 64,600 | 6,060 | 15,700 | 0.16% | |
Texas | 2,230 | 3,810 | 9,870 | 0.01% | |
New Mexico | 52,706 | 4,198 | 6,756 | 0.50% | |
Texas | 15,000 | 2,265 | 5,866 | 0.03% | |
New Mexico | 60,232 | 4,394 | 7,071 | 0.07% | |
Texas | 113 | 677 | 1,090 | 1.10% | |
Texas | 16,248 | 4,765 | 7,669 | 0.02% | |
Texas | 11,046 | 2,642 | 4,252 | 0.30% | |
Texas | 10,528 | 836 | 1,345 | 0.03% | |
Texas | 6,772 | 841 | 1,353 | 0.02% |
City | State | County | Population | Land Area | Land Area |
Texas | Ector County | 117,000 | 51.4 | 133 | |
New Mexico | Chaves County | 47,800 | 29.8 | 77 | |
New Mexico | Lea County | 37,800 | 26.4 | 68 | |
Texas | Andrews County | 17,700 | 6.96 | 18 | |
New Mexico | Roosevelt County | 11,900 | 7.95 | 20.95 | |
Texas | Reeves County | 9,920 | 22 | 56 | |
Texas | Gaines County | 7,560 | 3.8 | 9.84 | |
Texas | Brewster County | 6,070 | 4.8 | 12.43 | |
Texas | Culberson County | 1,920 | 2.84 | 7.35 | |
Texas | Jeff Davis County | 1,110 | 10.1 | 26.16 | |
Texas | Loving County | 29 | 0.17 | .44 |
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