October 31, 1975 - Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum

The FEA studied 65 separate field entities. Two of the original
50 fields selected by FEA contained seven separate field entities which
were studied separately and one field was studied twice. An additional
nine fields were selected for study after the original selection. The
FEA field study program involved the preparation of 47 field reports by
six contractors and 18 field reports by three Government agencies.
Forty-five days were allowed for the preparation of 56 of the reports
and 90 days were allowed for the preparation of nine of the reports.
Neither the contractors nor the Government agencies had appreciable
spare staff standing by awaiting commencement of the FEA field study
program. Accordingly, most of the FEA field studies are not of the
completely independent category discussed above. Perhaps a half dozen
of the reports demonstrate thorough basic original work.
Much is known and has been written about the 1arae oil and qas
fields of the United States. This information is in the form of'technical
papers which have been presented before professional societies
or published in trade journals. Many large fields have been extensively
reviewed and exhibited before various regulatory bodies. Many private
field studies have received some outside distribution. Very often,
large fields are studied by committees of technical people for the
purpose of developing unitized ooerating plans in the secondary recovery
category. When these fields involve many operators and hundreds of
mineral owners, the comnlittee studies are generally accessible to those
wishing to maintain extensive libraries. Finally, most of those working
on the field studies have had at least some experience working for
employers who have dominate positions in some of the larger fields.
Most of the FEA field studies were prepared after extensive reviews
of all of the available interpretative information mentioned above. Those
preparing the reports usually updated these reviews to whatever extent
seemed practicable. In most instances, the principal operators were
visited and additional factual information was obtained. In some
instances, the operators were not averse to discussing the interpretive
aspects of reservoir behavior. The authors then composited the various
items of information, carried out spot checks to the extent considered
advisable, and estimated the required hydrocarbon volumes.
Thus, the FEA field studies in most instances should be classed as
'independently prepared summary reviews of available literature and data,
suop1emented as necessary with oriqina1 work to make the study reasonably
complete. Problems arose when a field which had never been extensively
reviewed in the literature was dominated by one or two operators who
declined to discuss interpretive or proprietary information. These
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