Queen Formation, Permian Basin (TX, NM)

General Setting

The Guadalupian-aged Queen Formation in the Permian Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico consists of alternating sequences deposited on a shelf environment dominated by extensive sea level fluctuation. The Queen Formation is interbedded with siliclastic, carbonate mudstones, and evaporites. The porosity of the sandstone reservoirs is of secondary origin. Oil production is from two eolian sandstone units (Mazzullo and Mazzullo, 1984). The Gray Sandstones are the principal reservoir rocks (Tucker and Chalcraft, 1991). The reservoir lithology presently has 2-15% porosity and permeabilities between 30 and 500 md (Malicse et al., 1998). The Shattuck Member of the Queen Formation forms important stratigraphic traps for oil and gas on the Northwest shelf of the Permian Basin.  (Malicse et al., 1998). The majority of Queen sandstones are silt, clay, and cement resulting in relatively low porosities. The complexity and sediment reworking during sea level rise has made depositional environment classification elusive but proposed by many (Tucker and Chalcraft, 1991). Consideration of carbon dioxide injection should take the depositional environment complexity into account while targeting the upper ranges of porosity and permeability for suitability. The Shattuck Member could be an important confining system.

References

Malicse, A, Siegel, J, Mazzulo, J, and Mazzulo, S. Fri. 2018. "Provenance, diagenesis, and reservoir characteristics of Shattuck member of Queen Formation (Permian), northwest shelf, Permian basin". United States.

Mazzullo, J., Williams, M., & Mazzullo, S.J. 1984. Queen Formation of Millard field, Pecos County, Texas: its lithologic characteristics, environment of deposition, and reservoir petrophysics. United States. 

Tucker, K.E., Chalcraft, R.G., 1991. "Cyclicity in the Permian Queen Formation - U.S.M. Queen Field, Pecos County, Texas", Mixed Carbonate-Siliciclastic Sequences, Anthony J. Lomando, Paul M. Harris. doi: 10.2110/cor.91.01.0385.

Prepared by Emily Moskal, 2020.