U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service Gulf of Mexico OCS Region

Atlas of Gulf of Mexico Gas and Oil Sands
as of January 1, 1999

OCS Study MMS 2001-086

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, announces the availability of OCS Report MMS 2001-086, Atlas of Gulf of Mexico Gas and Oil Sands as of January 1, 1999, on CD-ROM (CD). This study details 65 plays that contain reserves across the northern Gulf of Mexico. These 65 established plays, comprising 10,235 sands in 1,042 fields, contain proved and unproved reserves totaling approximately 168 trillion cubic feet of gas (Tcfg) and 15 billion barrels of oil (Bbo), or a combined total of 45 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BBOE). Of this total, approximately 133 Tcfg and 11 Bbo (35 BBOE) have been produced.

This CD is an update of the Federal OCS data and information presented in the Atlas of Northern Gulf of Mexico Gas and Oil Reservoirs, Volume 1—Miocene and Older Reservoirs (Seni et al, 1997) and Volume 2—Pliocene and Pleistocene Reservoirs (Hentz et al, 1997), which were published in 1997 by the Bureau of Economic Geology of the University of Texas at Austin. There are several notable differences between the 1997 Atlas series and this update. Specifically, this update

• is totally digital on one CD available directly from MMS;
• presents only Federal OCS data;
• contains plays reflecting the aggregation of numerous subplays (e.g., UM1 P.1A and UM1 P.1B are now simply UM1 P1);
• contains maps with both hydrocarbon and play limits that are based on sand outlines, not field outlines; and
• incorporates data and information, especially significant deepwater discoveries, not available at the time of the 1997 Atlas series.

The CD is self-contained with Adobe Acrobat Reader, ESRI ArcExplorer, and Microsoft Excel Viewer for using several file types, including

• a report—in PDF format, which facilitates viewing, printing, navigating, and searching—including geologic descriptions, maps, tabular data, and exploration and production histories at the play, chronozone, series, system, province, and region levels, with additional information on deepwater and subsalt discoveries;
• GIS data, including detailed maps at the play level, coastal and federal-state boundaries, protraction areas and blocks, field and sand outlines, pipelines, platforms, planning areas, and fairways; and
• tabular data files—formatted in Excel 97 (.xls), Access 97 (.mdb), dBase III (.dbf), tab-delimited ASCII (.txt), and space-delimited ASCII (.prn)—comprising more than 80 parameters (including proved reserves, unproved reserves, cumulative production, remaining proved reserves, subsea depth, hydrocarbon type, porosity, permeability, water saturation, area, thickness, volume, GOR, pressure and temperature gradients, oil API gravity, gas specific gravity, and drive type) for all 10,235 sands.

The data and information on this CD are offered to MMS customers in a variety of user-friendly formats with no hardcopy burdens as tools for future exploration and development in the Gulf of Mexico Basin. Minimum system requirements are a Pentium/200 MHz IBM or compatible computer with Windows 98 and 64 MB of RAM.

The PDF-formatted report is also available for viewing via the Internet at the following address:  www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/gomatlas/atlas.html.

MMS is the federal agency in the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages the nation’s oil, natural gas and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf in federal offshore waters. The agency also collects, accounts for, and disburses mineral revenues from federal and Indian leases. These revenues totaled nearly $8 billion last year and more than $110 billion since the agency was created in 1982. Annually, nearly $1 billion from those revenues go into the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the acquisition and development of state and federal park and recreation lands.

-MMS-GOM-
MMS's Website Address: http://www.mms.gov

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