STARR Project Broadens Scope, Revenue to State

April 6, 2006

AUSTIN, Texas—A shining example of one of the Bureau of Economic Geology’s most successful basin and field studies is the State of Texas Advanced Resource Recovery (STARR) project, now led by principal investigator Robert G. Loucks and Associate Director Eric Potter.

The original STARR project, which began in September 1996, was developed to increase royalty income to the Permanent School Fund by having Bureau researchers work directly with operators of leases on State Lands to improve the efficiency of producing fields using the latest reservoir characterization technologies. During the 2005 regular Texas legislative session, the State increased the budget for Project STARR, making it possible to expand the program to include other prospective areas.

Map of Texas showing location of Project STARR field studies. See larger image.

In addition to reservoir characterization projects, researchers involved in the program are now looking at new venture studies in which regional fairways may prove to be good sites for drilling exploration wells. New funding will allow Project STARR staff to conduct studies to promote exploitation of unconventional resources, such as hydrocarbons from shale, tight gas sands, and low-pressure gas. The staff will also collaborate with other researchers conducting CO2 sequestration studies at the Bureau to promote profitable sequestration of CO2 in oil fields through CO2 enhanced oil recovery.

The philosophy of Project STARR is to work with State Lands operators to deploy advanced recovery strategies and newly developed technologies on a field-by-field basis to achieve maximal recovery efficiency. Texas State Lands operators are invited to participate in Project STARR to obtain, without cost or obligation, expert technical advice in developing State Lands oil and gas fields. The Bureau team also works with operators to evaluate deeper, higher risk prospects, such as reservoirs in the deep shelf gas play. This gas play concentrates on offshore Tertiary sandstone reservoirs that lie between depths of 15,000 and 35,000 feet.

Operators benefit from the Bureau’s strong experience in 3-D seismic data analysis, including structural and sequence-stratigraphic architectural analyses, stratal slicing, and amplitude anomaly analysis. From these studies, STARR team members have generated several major publications on sequence stratigraphy and gravity tectonics in the Texas Gulf of Mexico area.

The most volumetrically significant State Lands oil and gas resources are in State Waters of the Gulf Coast and State Leases of the Permian Basin in West Texas. Since 1996 results of the long-running STARR program have been used to recommend more than 150 wells. Project STARR has also worked on and identified several prospects in previously undrilled deeper strata. So far, 24 reservoirs on State Lands have been studied under the STARR program.

For more information about the Jackson School contact J.B. Bird at jbird@jsg.utexas.edu, 512-232-9623.