CENTRAL BASIN PLATFORM | PERMIAN

A Comprehensive Guide to the Permian’s Central Basin Platform, Featuring Subsurface information, Regional Facts & Statistics

Central Basin
Platform Overview

In many ways, the Central Basin Platform has been the backbone of Permian Basin production for a century. The following sections provide details about the Central Basin Platform’s production capacity, major geological structures, market activity, and regional population.

WHAT IS THE CENTRAL BASIN PLATFORM?

The Central Basin Platform (CBP) is a shallow subsurface structure located in west Texas and a portion of southeastern New Mexico. It sits in the heart of the Permian, between the Delaware and Midland Basins. With its long history of production, about 45% of the total barrels produced to-date in the Permian have come from the Central Basin Platform.

While not as aerially extensive as the Midland or Delaware Basins at 6,400 square miles, migrated oil from the basins charged the shallow carbonate reservoirs to create prolific, albeit localized, conventional fields along the Platform’s edges, many of which have transitioned to secondary and tertiary recovery. Operators are now looking to bring the latest horizontal drilling and completion technologies to this area.

WHAT NATURAL RESOURCES ARE IN THE CENTRAL BASIN PLATFORM?

In addition to its vast oil and gas reservoirs, there are a wide variety of subsurface natural resources in the Central Basin Platform region, including major sylvite formations that yield a steady supply of potassium salts (potash), a byproduct of which is rock salt. Given the high water cut in some Central Basin Platform formations, produced water is a valuable natural resource that operators must treat and reinject or recycle for use in hydraulic fracturing or even irrigation.

BUYING OR SELLING ASSETS IN THE PERMIAN?

San Andres Formation

The San Andres formation has been the primary driver of Central Basin Platform production for nearly a century. Vertical wells completed in the porous carbonate rock of the San Andres formation have produced continuously over decades from zones up to 1,000 feet thick. Well defined transition zones with high water cut have historically been bypassed, however, these areas are increasingly being targeted by operators along with horizontal drilling and enhanced oil recovery techniques.

Central Basin Platform Oil Production

The contribution of Central Basin Platform oil production to overall Permian output is considerable, accounting for roughly half of all oil production in the last century. As the epicenter for much of Permian production, the region is populated with multiple vintages of conventional oil wells, many of which employ enhanced oil recovery techniques, including carbon dioxide flooding.

MAP OF THE CENTRAL BASIN PLATFORM

The Central Basin Platform is a tectonically uplifted basement block topped by a carbonate platform. The map of the Central Basin Platform shows how it geologically divides the Delaware and Midland Basins. The Central Basin Platform spans approximately 6,400 square miles.

HISTORICAL AND EMERGING TARGETS IN THE CENTRAL BASIN PLATFORM

The success of the first commercial well drilled in the Permian Basin, which was drilled within the San Andres Formation in the neighboring Midland Basin, quickly spilled over to the Central Basin Platform in the early 1920s. Other historical targets include the Yates Formation and Yeso. Emerging targets in the Central Basin Platform include the Residual Oil Zone (ROZ) along the perimeter of large legacy fields and San Andres Horizontal Drilling (SAHZ), both of which offer operators secondary and tertiary development opportunities. The proven production of historical and emerging targets in the Central Basin Platform continue to make it a low-cost part of many operator's asset portfolios that generate consistent returns.

WHAT ARE THE FORMATIONS OF THE CENTRAL BASIN PLATFORM?

The formations of the Central Basin Platform are mainly comprised of carbonate reef deposits and shallow marine clastic sediments. From youngest to oldest (or shallowest to deepest), the formations of the Central Basin Platform include Tansill, Yates, Seven Rivers, Queen, Grayburg, San Andres, Glorieta, Paddock, Yeso, Abo, and Wolfcamp. While the prolific Wolfcamp underlies the Central Basin Platform, it is not an attractive target given its depth and relative thinness compared to the Midland and Delaware Basin Wolfcamp formations.

ADJOINING BASINS AND NOTABLE FEATURES OF THE CENTRAL BASIN PLATFORM

In addition to its core formations, the Central Basin Platform features a number of nearby adjoining geologic features or basins.

San Simon Channel

Separating the northern end of the CBP from the Northwest Shelf and the northern sides of the Midland and Delaware Basins is the San Simon Channel. Once a waterway that connected the two largest basins in the Permian, wells drilled in the San Simon Channel produce from Devonian to Upper Permian stratigraphic and structural traps.

Ozona Arch

An eastern extension of the southern CBP, The Ozona Arch separates the Midland and Val Verde Basins. The structure is a broken forebulge edged by steeply dipping, east/west trending fault zones.

Central Basin Rig Count

The types of rigs operating in the central basin platform reflect its contrasting subsurface and well economics compared to the rest of the Permian. With most development still focused on relatively shallow vertical wells, operators often use simpler, lower cost rotary drilling, however as the trend toward horizontal wells continues the central basin rig count will grow increasingly diverse.

U.S. Rig Count

521

2% ↑ change from previous week.
Last updated 2021-06-02.

Pipelines of the Central Basin Platform

Given its long history and continuous oil production over the last 100 years, the Central Basin Platform has many of the oldest gathering and transportation pipelines in the Permian. The pipelines of the Central Basin platform include oil, gas, and produced water transportation pipelines as well as carbon dioxide pipelines that service the regions injection wells used for enhanced oil recovery of legacy wells. Below are the major pipelines of the central basin platform.

CENTRAL BASIN PLATFORM OIL COMPANIES

Most Central Basin Platform oil companies are small, privately held companies, however the top 15 producers by barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) are mainly larger and publicly traded companies. These operators are primarily engaged in conventional vertical drilling in shallow fields along the edge of the platform.

Operator	Oil (Mbbl)	Gas (Mmcf)	BOE (Mboe)
Occidental	1,300	2,600	1,700
Chevron	468	975	630
Marathon Oil	350	1,589	614
ExxonMobil	358	904	509
Apache Corporation	257	595	356
Hess Corporation	276	372	338
Altura Energy	233	621	336
Kinder Morgan	259	351	317
XTO Energy	206	324	260
Shell	145	685	260
Amoco Production Company	206	298	255
ConocoPhillips	88	801	222
BP America	52	386	116
Burlington Resources	50	238	90
Devon Energy	56	140	79

COUNTIES OF THE CENTRAL BASIN PLATFORM

The counties of the Central Basin Platform are weighted heavily in west Texas acreage with the northern end of the platform extending into southeastern New Mexico’s Chaves, Eddy, Lea, and Roosevelt Counties. These counties represent diverse population and land areas, from the more populated Lubbock and Ector counties to the sparsely populated Terrell and Upton counties that span larger swaths of west Texas.

County	State	Population	Land Area (miles)	Land Area (kilometers)	Surface Water
Andrews County	Texas	14,057	1,501 square miles	2,416 km2	0.02%
Chaves County	New Mexico	64,600	6,060 square miles	15,700 km2	0.16%
Cochran County	Texas	3,130	775 square miles	2,007 km2	0.10%
Crane County	Texas	4,165	786 square miles	1,265 km2	0.08%
Crockett County	Texas	3,560	2800 square miles	7300 km2	0.20%
Dawson County	Texas	13,657	902 square miles	1,452 km2	0.20%
Ector County	Texas	134,165	902 square miles	1,452 km2	0.50%
Eddy County	New Mexico	52,706	4,198 square miles	6,756 km2	0.50%
Gaines County	Texas	15,382	1,503 square miles	2,419 km2	0.03%
Hale County	Texas	34,100	1004 square miles	2,600 km2	0.01%
Hockley County	Texas	23,100	908 square miles	2,352 km2	0.01%
Lamb County	Texas	14,000	1,020 square miles	2,640 km2	0.08%
Lea County	New Mexico	60,232	4,394 square miles	7,071 km2	0.07%
Lubbock County	Texas	305,000	895 square miles	2,318 km2	0.55%
Lynn County	Texas	5,920	893 square miles	2,313 km2	0.18%
Pecos County	Texas	16,248	4,765 square miles	7,669 km2	0.02%
Roosevelt County	New Mexico	18,800	2,447 square miles	6,338 km2	0.29%
Terrell County	Texas	969	2,358 square miles	3,795 km2	0.01%
Terry County	Texas	12,700	888 square miles	2,300 km2	0.24%
Upton County	Texas	3,130	1,242 square miles	1,999 km2	0.01%
Val Verde County	Texas	49,025	1,248 square miles	3,233 km2	2.70%
Ward County	Texas	10,528	836 square miles	1,345 km2	0.03%
Winkler County	Texas	6,772	841 square miles	1,353 km2	0.02%
Yoakum County	Texas	7,698	800 square miles	1,287 km2	0.01%

CITIES OF THE CENTRAL BASIN PLATFORM

The cities of the Central Basin Platform represent many of the oldest oil towns in Texas and New Mexico. These cities have supported the oil & gas industry’s drilling and field operations for a century and range in size from Lubbock with a population greater than 250,000 to Sanderson in the expanse of Terrell County with a population of less than 700.

City	State	County	Population	Land Area (miles)	Land Area (kilometers)
Lubbock	Texas	Lubbock County	254,000	136 square miles	352 km2
Odessa	Texas	Ector County	117,000	51.4 square miles	133 km2
Roswell	New Mexico	Chaves County	47,800	29.8 square miles	77 km2
Hobbs	New Mexico	Lea County	37,800	26.4 square miles	68 km2
Del Rio	Texas	Val Verde County	36,000	20.5 square miles	53 km2
Carlsbad	New Mexico	Eddy County	28,800	31.5 square miles	81.5 km2
Plainview	Texas	Hale County	20,800	13.8 square miles	35.74 km2
Andrews	Texas	Andrews County	17,700	6.96 square miles	18 km2
Levelland	Texas	Hockley County	13,600	10.2 square miles	26.4 km2
Portales	New Mexico	Roosevelt County	11,900	7.95 square miles	20.95 km2
Brownfield	Texas	Terry County	9,720	6.55 square miles	16.9 km2
Lamesa	Texas	Dawson County	9,210	5.14 square miles	13.31 km2
Fort Stockton	Texas	Pecos County	8,360	5.5 square miles	14.24 km2
Seminole	Texas	Gaines County	7,560	3.8 square miles	9.84 km2
Monahans	Texas	Ward County	7,520	28 square miles	72.5 km2
Kermit	Texas	Winkler County	6,070	2.52 square miles	6.5 km2
Littlefield	Texas	Lamb County	5,990	6.28 square miles	16.27 km2
Denver City	Texas	Yoakum County	4,870	2.5 square miles	6.47 km2
Crane	Texas	Crane County	3,760	1 square mile	1.61 km2
Ozona	Texas	Crockett County	3,220	4.67 square miles	12.1 km2
Tahoka	Texas	Lynn County	2,620	2.39 square miles	6.19 km2
McCamey	Texas	Upton County	2,060	2.03 square miles	5.25 km2
Morton	Texas	Cochran County	1,810	1.5 square miles	3.88 km2
Sanderson	Texas	Terrell County	695	4.2 square miles	10.8 kn2

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