Logs are difficult to interpret in a rank wildcat situation. Log interpretations are mostly based on production history. Everyone interpreting logs will look at what a zone looks like on logs and compare that to production history, i.e. a log look alike with good production history. Interpreting logs is a learned process for any given producing area, and it is definitely not something that is absolute. We currently have no production history in the Mesa area, except the wells 17 miles SSE from our well. None of the zones present in those wells will be productive in the Mesa 26 State No. 1. All of those zones in our well were tight and non-productive.
Numerous times, I have seen logs look wet and produce prodigious amounts of oil and gas. Likewise, I have seen logs look productive for oil and gas that produced all water. If you are in a known producing area with lots of data, logs can give excellent, conclusive results, but that is not the case at Mesa. We are drilling a WILDCAT, a real rank WILDCAT. No data. No close production. Nothing close to look at that might be comparable.
At Mesa, we know that we have multiple thick porous sections associated with oil and gas shows. We also know that we have excellent porosity/permeability in the granite wash at the bottom of the hole, but logs are mostly worthless trying to interpret such granite wash sections. Mineralization can be present, and often is, that can render log interpretations problematical, if not impossible. We do have granite wash production to look at in southern Roosevelt County, several tens of miles away, where some wells flowed 400 BOPD. For this case, the logs did not look very good and surface oil shows were poor to minor at best. One major oil company almost walked away from the discovery well of this field, but a geologist I know convinced them to complete the well. The management of this company told him to not spend any money unless it was absolutely necessary in the completion attempt, because they were certain it would be a dry hole. He completed the well and it came in flowing 400 BOPD and continued producing for a long time. This well ended up having major reserves. Company management shut up and continued drilling more wells. At this point, the poor logs did not matter to them, they had something better, production history.
The interpretation of well logs is a lot more problematical than most log experts are willing to admit. I have lots of first hand experience in such matters, and Calvin is also a bona fide log expert with world-class knowledge. I have seen Calvin back Schlumberger down more than once. I have also seen Schlumberger look Calvin up, to ask him specific questions about specific logs in areas that he has considerable experience in.
When drilling rank wildcats, it is normal to conduct drill stem test in order to obtain more data and for a more thorough evaluation. For the case of the Mesa 26 No. 1, we had severe hole problems that prevented us from running any drill stem test. If we had tried to test any of our more interesting zones, the result would have been a junked, lost hole. There was no way we could set test tools on the bottom of our hole for any length of time. The hole was not stable enough to do that.
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