Impact of Oil and Gas Activity
on Land-Use Management Decisions

"Data assembled by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey for use in the National Oil and Gas Assessment are useful for other purposes as well. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey is uniquely positioned to provide users, especially land-use managers, an historical view of a specified area of interest in combination with a look at possible future oil and gas activity. The capability to study an area prospectively and retrospectively is the real power of national assessment data files."

Dr. Don Gautier, U.S. Geological Survey

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has the primary Federal responsibility to conduct a national assessment of oil and gas resources.

Knowledge of oil and gas resources is needed for strategic plan-ning and formulating economic and energy policies. Data assembled for these purposes are particularly suitable for evaluating lands in the purview of the Federal government and developing sound envi-ronmental policies as oil and gas activity increases. However, these data may be used for any specified tract of land for analysis of the impact of oil and gas activity. Data files used for these purposes include the Well History Control System (WHCS) of Petroleum Information, Inc., fields and reservoir data from Richard Nehring's files, and production and reserves data from the Energy Information Agency of the U.S. Department of Energy.

USGS scientists assemble petroleum data and perform analyses on the basis of a "play."

A play is a set of discovered or undiscovered oil or gas accumulations or prospects that exhibit similar geological characteristics. A play is defined, therefore, by the geological properties that are responsible for the accumulation or prospect. The significance of play analysis is that it links statistics of oil and gas exploration and development to geological expertise. Application of this technique now can be extended to yield a number of possible future outcomes of petroleum exploration and development in an area of specific concern. The history of oil and gas activity within the boundary of an area can be linked to a large array of related data and analyses which together can provide a basis for judging the local impact of future oil and gas activity.

Figure 1

Several examples of the application of oil and gas activity data to land-use planning are readily derived from the National Assessment.

One example that is especially significant is found in the tight-gas sands of the western United States where gas resources are abundant and much of the land is managed by Federal agencies. Much discussion has surrounded gases found in continuous reservoirs as being significant hydrocarbon sources in the future energy mix of this country. Such discussions always included the gas in the Green River basin. Without gas from these very-low permeability reservoirs, the coalbed gas of the San Juan basin, and gas in fractured shales, gas will remain a relatively minor component of the Nation's future energy mix. But, land-use planners are not in a good position to determine the societal impact of the drilling that would be necessary if these continuous reservoirs of gas were exploited. USGS researchers are able to bring to bear the sum of pertinent geological experience in an area of special interest by examining the intersection of the play and the known exploration history. The land-use planner now has a view of the past as well as a view of the future.

Figure 2

For More Information:

Email: dhouse@usgs.gov