Charles H. Tootle
Florida Geological Survey
Tallahassee
Florida's 22 oil and gas fields had produced 524,790,066 bbl of oil and 539,313,256 Mcf of gas through Jan. 1, 1991, leaving an estimated 109,321,577 bbl of oil and 118,289,689 Mcf of gas that can be produced with today's technology and economics.
There is a paucity of oil reserve data for Florida.
The author's reconnaissance oil reserve survey, prepared for publication in March 1978 but not published because of economic conditions, was the only public oil reserve data compilation for Florida other than operators' data, which are considered proprietary.
This open file report No. 41 is an update to the March 1978 Oil Reserve Survey and Information Circular No. 107.
BACKGROUND
Oil was discovered in Florida Sept. 22, 1943, with completion of the 1 Gulf Coast Realties Corp. well in SE 29-48s-30e, Collier County.
This well was drilled to 11,626 ft and completed from open hole at 11,602-626 ft in the Lower Cretaceous Sunniland carbonate formation. The well discovered Sunniland oil field, with 37,685,118 bbl of oil originally in place.
The original recoverable oil in place was 18,842,559 bbl, and 18,444,812 bbl had been produced from this field as of Jan. 1, 1991.
Original recoverable gas in place was 1,884,256 Mcf, and 1,824,628 Mcf had been produced as of Jan. 1, 1991.
Twenty-one more oil fields have been discovered in Florida through Jan. 1, 1991 (Fig. 1).
The combined original oil in place was 1,203,618,403 bbl, and the original recoverable oil in place was 634,111,643 bbl.
RESERVE, FIELD DATA
Archie's equation was used to estimate the oil saturations in 2 ft increments.
The formation water resistivities used were 0.018 ohm-m for the Jurassic Smackover, which produces in the Florida Panhandle, and 0.022 ohm-m for the Sunniland.
Formation temperatures were estimated with the formulae SST = 76 + depth/80 for the panhandle and SST = 76 + depth/100 for peninsula Florida. SST is the subsurface formation temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, and the depth is the distance in feet below the ground surface.
The volumetric calculation procedure was used to estimate reserves for all oil fields except Sunniland, Sunoco Felda, and West Felda fields (Tables 3, 4).
Decline curve analysis was used to estimate the reserves for these three oil fields because they are rather old fields well into the decline part of their production curves. For these fields this method gives more credible results than for younger fields.
Few porosity logs were available for these three oil fields, and most of the wells were drilled with water, which made the resistivity logs yield anomalous values.
Discovery well data are listed in Tables 1 and 2, and annual production data for Florida's oil and gas are shown in Fig. 2.
Forty Mile Bend, Seminole, Sweetwater Creek, and Baxter Island fields have been plugged and abandoned but have been included for complete coverage and information.
FLORIDA EXPLORATION
The first well apparently drilled in Florida in search of oil and gas was drilled in Gadsden County in 1892 to 1,750 ft.
The exact location, operator, and name of the well are unknown.
Operators drilled 189,307 ft of hole before the discovery in 1943 of Sunniland field in Collier County.
Nine wildcats were drilled during 1990 with a combined footage of 120,700 ft, and all were dry. Five wildcats have been drilled during January-August 1991 for a combined 72,594 ft, and all were dry.
One of these wildcats was a Sunniland prospect in southern Florida. The other 13 were Smackover-Norphlet prospects in northwestern Florida.
Florida's most recent discovery was McDavid field in Escambia County, with a discovery date of May 30, 1988.
Copyright 1991 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
