Hugoton Gas Field

Natural gas in the Hugoton area was first discovered in 1922 in the Boles #1 well, in Seward County, two miles west of Liberal. The well was drilled in 1919 to a depth of 2,919 feet by the Defenders Petroleum and Traders Oil and Gas Company, but was shut in for three years because it did not find oil. In 1922 the well was completed as a gas well, but there was little demand for natural gas in the area and it was years before another gas well was drilled in the field. In 1927, gas was discovered at the Independent Oil and Gas Company's Crawford No. 1, ==Helium==

The natural gas in the Hugoton field of Kansas and Oklahoma, plus the Panhandle Field of Texas, contains unusually high concentrations of helium, from 0.3% to 1.9%. Because of the large size of these fields, they contain the largest reserves of helium in the United States. Helium is separated out as a byproduct from natural gas, from the Hugoton field, the Panhandle field in Texas, the Greenwood field in Kansas, and the Keyes field in Oklahoma. Much of the recovered helium is piped to the National Helium Reserve in Amarillo, Texas, where it is stored underground in geologic formations for future use. ==Geology==

The Hugoton Field is a stratigraphic trap overlying a monocline, with the primary pay found in the Krider Dolomite of Permian age. This dolomite and the overlying Herington dolomite make up the Wolfcampian carbonates. Above these carbonates is the Wichita, an anhydrite and dense dolomite forming the reservoir seal, which thins to the west. Marine carbonates were being deposited from the Late Pennsylvanian until Early Permian when the western portion of the area was uplifted which resulted in erosion and the deposition of red clays and sands, the future red beds consisting of shales and sandstones. ==See also==