This report summarizes results of an integrated geological, geophysical, petrophysical, and engineering study of a representative Delaware Mountain Group field to identify constraints on producibility in the deep-water sandstone reservoir exhibiting low primary recovery efficiency. The Ramsey sandstone interval of the Bell Canyon Formation was characterized in the Ford Geraldine unit, Culberson and Reeves Counties, Texas, using data from outcrops, subsurface logs and cores, and a 3-D seismic survey.

A multidisciplinary reservoir-characterization study of the Ellenburger Group was conducted over a 176-mi2 3-D seismic grid in Pecos, Reeves, and Ward Counties in the southern Delaware Basin of West Texas. The study area covered Lockridge, Waha, and West Waha fields and parts of Worsham-Bayer and Coyanosa fields, which have produced 1.3 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas since their discoveries in the 1960's. Seismic time-structure and depth maps were generated for the tops of the Bone Spring-3, Mississippian, Devonian (Woodford), and Ellenburger.

Between 1951 and 1996, groundwater pumpage from the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer, one of Texas' major aquifer systems, increased in the area between the Colorado and Brazos Rivers from approximately 10,600 to 37,900 acre-ft/yr, primarily as a result of mining needs. Continued (and possibly greatly accelerated) growth in groundwater demand for a variety of uses is expected through the year 2050.