Oil and Gas Left to Find in the Cherokee Platform of Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri

Summary

Using a geology-based method, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas in the Cherokee Platform Province area of southeastern Kansas, northeastern Oklahoma and southwestern Missouri. Mean estimates:

• 463 million barrels of oil;
• 11.2 trillion cubic feet of gas;
• 35 million barrels of natural gas liquids.

The Cherokee Platform Province and its four assessment units. USGS; base from the National Park Service.

Petroleum systems

The assessment, part of the USGS National and Global Petroleum Assessment Project, rests on each total petroleum system (TPS) — its source rocks, reservoir rocks and traps. Three were defined:

Assessment units

• Paleozoic Conventional: its oldest producing well was drilled in 1900; most past production came from sandstones of the Middle Pennsylvanian Cherokee Group.
• Woodford Biogenic Gas: in the east-central province, only where the shale lies 1,250 feet deep or shallower; most of its gas has come from Wagoner County, Oklahoma.
• Woodford Shale Oil: parts of southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma, with most production in its southwest.
• Desmoinesian Coalbed Gas: bounded by Desmoinesian outcrop, net coal thickness and borehole data. Most gas has come from Montgomery, Wilson, Neosho and Labette counties in Kansas and Nowata, Washington and Osage counties in Oklahoma. A sweet spot was drawn where net coal is 10 feet or thicker.

Results (means)

So nearly all the remaining oil and gas is unconventional — in the Woodford shale and the Desmoinesian coals — not in conventional traps.

Sources

Based on "Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources in the Cherokee Platform Province Area of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri," U.S. Geological Survey fact sheet; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The map is taken from the fact sheet's PDF.