LUCRATIVE DISCOVERIES STILL LURK IN U.S., EXPLORATION GROUP SAYS

G. Alan Petzet Exploration Editor Exploration in the U.S. Lower 48 states can be profitable if you have innovative geological ideas and are using the most modern tools, says a group being formed to pursue opportunities there. Anschutz Corp., Denver, is forming Anschutz Exploration Corp. under the presidency of John A. Masters, who retired last year as chairman of Canadian Hunter Exploration Ltd., Calgary. Funded by Anschutz, Anschutz Exploration will be an association of exploration veterans

Nov. 15, 1993

4 min read

G. Alan Petzet
Exploration Editor

Exploration in the U.S. Lower 48 states can be profitable if you have innovative geological ideas and are using the most modern tools, says a group being formed to pursue opportunities there.

Anschutz Corp., Denver, is forming Anschutz Exploration Corp. under the presidency of John A. Masters, who retired last year as chairman of Canadian Hunter Exploration Ltd., Calgary.

Funded by Anschutz, Anschutz Exploration will be an association of exploration veterans and consultants. It expects to drill its first prospect in mid-1994.

Masters said the company will concentrate onshore in areas with abundant well control, drilling at a cost of $200,000-300,000/well in search of reserves of 5 million bbl or more at generally 5,000-6,000 ft.

The new company, by using state of the art science and technology, intends to fill a void created by companies abandoning U.S. exploration because the techniques they use no longer find oil and gas cost effectively there, Masters said.

It is not necessary to pour money into Alaska, leave the U.S., or plumb the deepest Anadarko basin at prohibitive cost to find significant reserves, he added.

Lucrative, "invisible" fields in the Lower 48 are hiding behind clay blocking, grain sorting, pressure data, and other factors that most explorers using electric logs and other standard but aging exploration techniques do not measure accurately, Masters believes.

HOW IT WILL WORK

Anschutz Exploration will switch personnel to deal with various projects and enlist others for local expertise and additional prospect concepts, the company said.

It will operate independently from Anschutz Corp.'s existing exploration/production effort and will have access to Anschutz's land, operations, finance and accounting, legal, and engineering infrastructure.

Oil likely will be a preference on the first half dozen prospects because of its ability to generate revenue more quickly.

"The U.S. still has substantial amounts of oil and gas; the fields are much harder to find but the available tools are better, so the odds are still about the same" as they were in past decades, Masters said.

For instance, costly scanning electron microscopes used to examine cuttings can provide several thousand times the magnification of the ordinary binocular the industry is using today.

Using this power and properly quantifying clay, pyrite, or other critical minerals can yield more accurate water saturation calculations that will turn some dry holes into economic producing wells, he said. Seismic surveys cannot be used in a vacuum to find oil and gas; other scientific work must be performed and tied with seismic to yield viable results.

WHO'S INVOLVED

Here are the main players associated with Anschutz Exploration:

Gerald Loucks, Denver, formerly with Occidental Petroleum Corp., Kerr-McGee Corp., and North Central Oil Corp., a geologist who had a hand in discovery in 1975 of Utah's landmark Pineview oil field and subsequent Rocky Mountain Overthrust belt finds.
Lawrence Meckel Houston, a former Shell Oil Co. researcher who consulted for many years with Canadian Hunter and was an important contributor to discovery of Elmworth, Canada's largest gas field.
John T. Smith, Houston, partner with Meckel, veteran of 40 years with Shell, and multidiscipline scientist.
Lorraine Druyff, a skilled petrographer who trained with Canadian Hunter for 10 years.
Monte Fryt, experienced log analyst who moved from Schlumberger to Canadian Hunter.
Macomb Jervey, Hood River, Ore., early retired as vice-president exploration for Canadian Hunter and previously spent 15 years with Exxon, where with Peter Vail and others he developed sequence stratigraphy.
Robert Foote Sr., Hurst, Tex., a physicist who has pioneered radiometric and airborne magnetic surface exploration methods and techniques.

Masters retired in September 1992 after 20 years with Canadian Hunter. A geologist, he has a BS in economics from Yale University (1948) and an MS in geology from Colorado University (1951). He will commute between Calgary and Denver.

He said he dedicates the effort to the thousands of geologists, engineers, and other scientists severed from their jobs with the decline of the U.S. industry since 1986. He hopes to prove that there is much work for them in the U.S.