Oil and gas resources on University Lands, 2.1 million acres in 19 West Texas counties, constitute a major asset of the University of Texas System. The original oil in place (OOIP) of the 102 major University Lands oil reservoirs is calculated to be 7,520 MMbbl.

Reservoirs in the Permian Basin of Texas are estimated to have contained a total of 105.7 billion barrels (Bbbl) of oil at discovery. As of January 1985, these reservoirs had produced a cumulative volume of 25.3 Bbbl of oil, and proved reserves were calculated at 5.9 Bbbl.

Reexploration of old fields in mature hydrocarbon provinces, such as the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, may significantly increase known oil and gas reserves.

Shallow-water-platform carbonate reservoirs of Permian age have accounted for more than half of the oil production in the Permian Basin, one of the largest oil-producing regions in the United States.

The Leonardian Spraberry Formation is a major oil-producing formation of the Permian Basin, accounting for more than 700 million barrels of oil produced from heterogeneous submarine-fan reservoirs.

The Upper Devonian Woodford Formation is an organic-rich petroleum source rock that extends throughout West Texas and southeastern New Mexico and currently is generating oil or gas in the subsurface.

Unrecovered mobile oil is oil that is movable at reservoir conditions but is prevented from migrating to existing we1 l bores because of geologic complexities or heterogeneities.

Silurian and Devonian carbonate and chert rocks in the Permian Basin constitute a prolific hydrocarbon-bearing succession in West Texas and New Mexico.