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.
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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.
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Tansill Formation
With a thickness between 120 and 320 feet, the Tansill Formation is the shallowest of the Central Basin Platform formations. It is comprised of limestone, siltstone, and anhydrite spanning west Texas and southeastern New Mexico.
Paddack Formation
The Paddock Formation, sometimes referred to as the Paddock Pay, is a producing zone capping the upper Yeso Formation with a thickness up to 350 feet. It is comprised mainly of anhydritic dolomite with interbedded sandstone.
Seven Rivers Formation
Ranging in thickness from 400 to 2,000 feet, the Seven Rivers Formation is comprised of anhydrite with interbeds of dolomite, sandstone, siltstone, and shale. As with most of the upper CBP formations, it is part of the Artesia Group, a sequence of shelf rocks in the Capitan reef.
Abo Formation
With a maximum thickness of approximately 900 feet, the Abo Formation is comprised of redbed mudstone and sandstone. It has distinctive sandstone sheets in the upper beds and river channel deposits in its lower beds.
Yates Formation
Underlying the Tansill Formation, the Yates Formation is similarly comprised of siltstone, anhydrite, and very fine sandstone with large quartz grain inclusions. It's average thickness is approximately 260 feet.
Grayburg Formation
The Grayburg Formation has an average thickness of approximately 300 feet. From top to bottom, it is comprised mainly of layers of dolomite, sandy dolomite, and sandstone with intermittent anhydrite interbeds.
San Andres Formation
Conformably overlain by the Grayburg Formation, the San Andres Formation is comprised of marine limestone with a maximum thickness of 1,300 feet. The San Andres Formation has been the primary target of oilfield development in the CBP since the early 1920s.
Queen Formation
Underlying the seven Rivers Formation, the Queen Formation is comprised of sandstone with infrequent interbeds of anhydrite and dolomite. The Queen Formation has a maximum thickness of 500 feet.
Glorieta Formation
The Glorieta Formation is a mature quartzarenite sandstone. Approximately one third of the Glorieta Formation is trough-crossbedded sandstone with about a quarter of the Formation characterized by wind-ripple laminated sandstone.
Wolfcamp Formation
The Wolfcamp Formation is primarily characterized by thick, organic rich shales, with varying amounts of siliciclastic and carbonate influence. Unlike the Midland and Delaware Basins, only a narrow 200-to-400-foot band of the Wolfcamp formation underlies the CBP.
Yeso Formation
The Yeso Formation, is a sequence of oil and gas producing reservoirs at depths between 5,000 to 7,000 feet. These reservoirs include, from top to bottom the Blinebry, Tubb, and Drinkard reservoirs. The Blinebry and Drinkard members of the Yeso Formation are mainly comprised of dolomite and limestone while the Tubb reservoir is primarily sandstone. The Blinebry is the primary target within the Yeso.
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) |
|
1,300 |
2,600 |
1,700 |
|
|
468 |
975 |
630 |
|
|
350 |
1,589 |
614 |
|
|
358 |
904 |
509 |
|
|
257 |
595 |
356 |
|
|
276 |
372 |
338 |
|
|
233 |
621 |
336 |
|
|
259 |
351 |
317 |
|
|
206 |
324 |
260 |
|
|
145 |
685 |
260 |
|
|
206 |
298 |
255 |
|
|
88 |
801 |
222 |
|
|
52 |
386 |
116 |
|
|
50 |
238 |
90 |
|
|
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 |
|
Texas |
14,057 |
1,501 square miles |
2,416 km2 |
0.02% |
|
|
New Mexico |
64,600 |
6,060 square miles |
15,700 km2 |
0.16% |
|
|
Texas |
3,130 |
775 square miles |
2,007 km2 |
0.10% |
|
|
Texas |
4,165 |
786 square miles |
1,265 km2 |
0.08% |
|
|
Texas |
3,560 |
2800 square miles |
7300 km2 |
0.20% |
|
|
Texas |
13,657 |
902 square miles |
1,452 km2 |
0.20% |
|
|
Texas |
134,165 |
902 square miles |
1,452 km2 |
0.50% |
|
|
New Mexico |
52,706 |
4,198 square miles |
6,756 km2 |
0.50% |
|
|
Texas |
15,382 |
1,503 square miles |
2,419 km2 |
0.03% |
|
|
Texas |
34,100 |
1004 square miles |
2,600 km2 |
0.01% |
|
|
Texas |
23,100 |
908 square miles |
2,352 km2 |
0.01% |
|
|
Texas |
14,000 |
1,020 square miles |
2,640 km2 |
0.08% |
|
|
New Mexico |
60,232 |
4,394 square miles |
7,071 km2 |
0.07% |
|
|
Texas |
305,000 |
895 square miles |
2,318 km2 |
0.55% |
|
|
Texas |
5,920 |
893 square miles |
2,313 km2 |
0.18% |
|
|
Texas |
16,248 |
4,765 square miles |
7,669 km2 |
0.02% |
|
|
New Mexico |
18,800 |
2,447 square miles |
6,338 km2 |
0.29% |
|
|
Texas |
969 |
2,358 square miles |
3,795 km2 |
0.01% |
|
|
Texas |
12,700 |
888 square miles |
2,300 km2 |
0.24% |
|
|
Texas |
3,130 |
1,242 square miles |
1,999 km2 |
0.01% |
|
|
Texas |
49,025 |
1,248 square miles |
3,233 km2 |
2.70% |
|
|
Texas |
10,528 |
836 square miles |
1,345 km2 |
0.03% |
|
|
Texas |
6,772 |
841 square miles |
1,353 km2 |
0.02% |
|
|
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) |
|
Texas |
Lubbock County |
254,000 |
136 square miles |
352 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Ector County |
117,000 |
51.4 square miles |
133 km2 |
|
|
New Mexico |
Chaves County |
47,800 |
29.8 square miles |
77 km2 |
|
|
New Mexico |
Lea County |
37,800 |
26.4 square miles |
68 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Val Verde County |
36,000 |
20.5 square miles |
53 km2 |
|
|
New Mexico |
Eddy County |
28,800 |
31.5 square miles |
81.5 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Hale County |
20,800 |
13.8 square miles |
35.74 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Andrews County |
17,700 |
6.96 square miles |
18 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Hockley County |
13,600 |
10.2 square miles |
26.4 km2 |
|
|
New Mexico |
Roosevelt County |
11,900 |
7.95 square miles |
20.95 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Terry County |
9,720 |
6.55 square miles |
16.9 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Dawson County |
9,210 |
5.14 square miles |
13.31 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Pecos County |
8,360 |
5.5 square miles |
14.24 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Gaines County |
7,560 |
3.8 square miles |
9.84 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Ward County |
7,520 |
28 square miles |
72.5 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Winkler County |
6,070 |
2.52 square miles |
6.5 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Lamb County |
5,990 |
6.28 square miles |
16.27 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Yoakum County |
4,870 |
2.5 square miles |
6.47 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Crane County |
3,760 |
1 square mile |
1.61 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Crockett County |
3,220 |
4.67 square miles |
12.1 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Lynn County |
2,620 |
2.39 square miles |
6.19 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Upton County |
2,060 |
2.03 square miles |
5.25 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Cochran County |
1,810 |
1.5 square miles |
3.88 km2 |
|
|
Texas |
Terrell County |
695 |
4.2 square miles |
10.8 kn2 |
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