Railroad Valley Analogue Project
In Q3 and Q4 2019, intensive interpretation work was carried out by a Railroad Valley Analogue Project team including geologists with in-depth experience of the adjacent producing field and focusing on East and West Plays in Hot Creek Valley.The Company’s latest basin model supports the view that Hot Creek Valley is part of the same basin as Railroad Valley and is its mirror image. As in Railroad Valley, the source rock is Chainman Shale.
Volcanic activity in the centre of the basin has created the ‘kitchen’ and the oil is migrating outwards to the rims of the basin.
In Railroad Valley, oil has migrated to form two geologically different fields, Trap Spring in Tertiary strata and Grant Canyon in the Palaeozoic.
US Oil has identified two Railroad Valley geological analogues in Hot Creek Valley- an eastern analogue corresponding to Trap Spring (the East Play) and a western analogue corresponding to Grant Canyon (the West Play).
Intensive data collection and analysis, including reprocessed seismic data, have supported a basin model for Hot Creek Valley in which hydrocarbons migrate westwards at Paleozoic strata and turn eastwards at Tertiary levels. The current picture indicates highly prospective areas on the Company’s acreage both to the west and to the east.