Ground-Water Exploration - Economic Technique
Authors: Zublin William C. 
Published: December 2007

Publication Rights Reserved

This paper is to be presented at the 39th Annual Fall Meeting to be held in Houston, Tex., on Oct. 11–14, 1964, and is considered property of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Permission to publish is hereby restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words, with no illustrations, unless the paper is specifically released to the press by the Editor of the Journal of Petroleum Engineers or the Executive Secretary. Such abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is granted on request, providing proper credit is given that publication and the original presentation of the paper.

Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines.

This paper covers the use of standard equipment in package form to take advantage of specialized personnel and techniques in ground water exploration. Emphasis is on mobility, speed of operation, and economics. Operational procedures are discussed in relationship to oilfield practices. Development of special techniques and limits of application reviewed. The use of report forms and formats along with resolved, deduced, and implied data are detailed. Included is a presentation of a pro-forma program and cost analysis of some actual projects compared to results obtained.

Introduction

Oil exploration techniques have been developed over the last few Tears to include many technological advances of proven informative value. Among these are drilling equipment, mud engineering, coring, electric logging, effluent material logging, not to mention the geological and geophysical work that has preceded the basic exploration drilling. Usually some thirty different pieces of mechanical, electrical and geological information are recorded and evaluated during the course of drilling. Experience has shown that the cost of oil exploration drilling is in the vicinity of $9.00/foot excluding production tests. The relatively high cost of these ventures is supported by the expectation of good returns in the form of saleable oil over an extended period of time.

The demand for, and the expectations of, water, in quantity and of good quality, exceeds the volumetric demand for oil by a large factor. However., because of the universal application of water and the archaic idea that water is always available inexpensively, ground water exploration and development does not have the economic latitude of its deeper cousin, oil. In other words, methods and technologies that can be used to explore and develop oil reservoirs, must be re-evaluated when applied to water, because of the inability of the water market to pay the cost. The techniques discussed herein are not basically different than those applied to oil explorations, rather are designed to give maximum information at minimum cost by utilizing a combination of equipment and trained personnel.