(fyafit&i 41 



EXPLORATION 

 PLANNING 



E. A. Wendlcmdt 



This is a story of exploration. In it is traced the development of a full- 

 scale exploration program that an imaginary company conducts in a hypothetical 

 sedimentary basin in its search for petroleum. The story stresses the way a 

 modern oil company might use the various geological and geophysical methods 

 and techniques in an attack on a potential oil province. It stresses the fact that 

 the driving force of an exploration program is geological thinking and that 

 this thinking is the main tool utilized by an exploration-minded oil company. 



EXPLORATION COMPANY 

 AND ITS POLICIES 



THE AMERICAN The American Production & Exploration Com- 



pany, referred to in industrial circles as 

 Amprex (fig. 41-1), has been operating suc- 

 cessfully in the Gulf Coastal Plain, the Mid- 

 continent area, and the Permian Basin area 

 of West Texas and New Mexico, and like other oil companies exploring for oil 

 today, it has found its costs of exploration and development rising alarmingly. 

 The price Amprex receives for its crude and for its refined products is no longer 

 commensurate with the profits of earlier years when the costs of finding and 

 developing domestic oil were much less than they are today. Like some of its 

 competitors, Amprex has invested heavily in foreign regions, and it has been 



815 



