SPEAKER: Richard Friz, GEO-CEO of Xplora Energy, LLC
TITLE: Desmoinesian Cherokee Group: Red Fork Sandstone Sed-Strat, Sequence Stratigraphy, Distribution, and Production
ABSTRACT: The Red Fork sandstone is one of several transgressive-regressive sequences (cyclothems) developed within the Pennsylvanian-age Desmoinesian Cherokee Group. A map of Red Fork sand trends reveals an alluvial-deltaic complex covering most of Oklahoma. Red Fork oil and gas reservoirs average just 3 percent primary porosity but have up to 20 percent secondary porosity. In addition, compartmentalization of the reservoirs has restricted recovery rates from oil and gas accumulations developed with vertical wells. It makes the Red Fork reservoir a viable target using horizontal drilling and modern hydraulic fracturing methods even in older depleted or nearly depleted fields. As a result, many companies are taking the opportunity to drill for multiple unconventional resource plays within the large Red Fork deltaic complex.
Bio: Richard (Rick) Fritz is a native Oklahoman who spent much of his youth around the oil patch in Osage County, Oklahoma. His dad, granddad, great-granddad and many of his uncles worked as pumpers or roughnecks. Currently, Rick is the GEO-CEO of Xplora Energy, LLC. The goal of Xplora Energy is to develop new resource play ideas using advanced geoscience, engineering and analytical methods.
Rick is also the Executive Director of the AAPG Foundation in Tulsa where he manages a staff charged with providing funding for education and research programs for students and professors. In addition, Rick is a past president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, a global organization of geoscientists, engineers, business professionals, etc. focused on geoscience and energy.
Rick started his career in 1977 by working for Exxon (before +Mobil) in development geology in South Texas and later as an exploration geologist in the Mid-continent. Post Exxon, Rick became president of Masera Corporation and supervised major exploration research projects in the U.S., and in the Middle East and Africa. From 1999 to 2011, Rick was the Executive Director of AAPG. He was responsible for the management of AAPG headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the oversight of numerous programs for AAPG members and the general public. In 2011 Rick was hired to work in SM Energy Company’s new venture exploration team in Tulsa. Rick studied active resource plays to understand the parameters that made some successful and others marginal. From 2015-18 Fritz was the CEO of Council Oak Resources, an EnCap private equity start-up focused on the Midcontinent.
Rick bleeds orange having graduated from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater in 1978. He is an active member of the OSU Geoscience Alumni Advisory Board and volunteers to support and improve the Boone Pickens School of Geoscience at OSU.
One of Rick’s favorite Oklahomans is Will Rogers. Like Will, Rick is a “people person” and enjoys working with and managing professionals, especially young professionals. In his roles at AAPG and OSU Rick has enjoyed working on numerous programs for students.