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3D seismic in the Barents Sea reveal promising traps and convincing flat spots.
While the first deep water wells in the Norwegian Sea failed to reach the Jurassic, significant data improvements may now make it possible to delineate Jurassic targets in deep grabens and structural highs.
A thirty year independence struggle with Ethiopia means that the natural resources of Eritrea remain largely untapped, but there is ample evidence that this now peaceful country is highly prospective for oil and gas.
For years the Faroe Islands have had to look on while their larger neighbours in north-west Europe have extracted untold riches in hydrocarbons from offshore acreage. Has their turn finally come?
Underlying an area approximately the size of France, the Bakken Formation oil reservoir keeps expanding into what has become North America’s hottest onshore oil play.
A largely untested 15,000 m of syn-rift and post-rift succession of Middle Jurassic to Upper Cretaceous sediments in the offshore Ceduna Sub-basin beckons exploration.
There is now growing industry excitement in anticipation of the forthcoming Gabonese Licensing Round. The Round is increasingly being hailed as one of the best opportunities in many years to participate in a prospective, but as yet underexplored region.
New data using GeoStreamer® gives extraordinary imaging of sub-salt and deeper events in the Levantine Basin in the eastern Mediterranean.
Although some major oil producers view the prospects offshore UK as too small for their attention, their exit leaves interesting opportunities for smaller companies.
A seismic line displayed in GEO ExPro caught the interest of a dedicated geologist as he spotted a pattern that resembled that of a major oil discovery he knew very well. His observation eventually led to Chevron's application in the Norwegian 20th licensing round for acreage that may include a large prospect along the North Atlantic Volcanic Margin.
The future of the Norwegian Barents Sea, following almost 30 years of exploration, is still in the making. A new look at the petroleum systems in combination with high quality seismic data may reveal the hidden secrets of this huge geological province that has already proven an exceptionally high technical success rate.
Offshore Indonesia, TGS has recently come up with innovative ways of combining data from a number of sources to examine the prospectivity of underexplored deepwater frontier basins in a cost-effective manner.
Recent seismic reprocessing work performed by geophysical contractor, Spectrum Geo Ltd., under an agreement with the Indian Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) has shown that the application of modern seismic processing techniques (specifically Radon Demultiple, PSTM and PSDM) to data acquired in 2002 has considerably improved the final result.
While well geochemistry is a routine service in exploration drilling, surface geochemistry is now growing in popularity, in particular in deep water frontier basins. That's a market Geolab Nor wants their fair share of.
Hidden by a thick veil of salt and once thought too deep for liquid hydrocarbons, recent deep water discoveries off the southeastern Brazilian coast could be the largest in the past 30 years.
Afren is a young oil and gas exploration business with ambitious plans: to become the premier pan-African independent oil and gas exploration and production company.
StatoilHydro has grown into a major player in Angola. With more than 200,000 barrels of oil produced every single day, and having assisted Sonangol to become an operator, the time is now right to take the next step. With strong support from the head office back in Norway, StatoilHydro is ready to take on operatorship in Angola.
The announcement of a new licensing round in Colombia emphasises how the South American country is moving out of the shadow of violence and into a new era of stability
and growth. Billions of barrels of oil may be found according to optimistic geologists.
As the search for hydrocarbons moves into increasingly unwelcoming and difficult terrain,
a niche market in leading oil and service companies safely through the dangers
of a hostile environment has developed.
The Russian sector of the Chukchi Sea is a frontier exploration province with little seismic data and no wells. Despite this lack of crucial geological information, regional correlations with the American sector indicate that the potential of this vast region may be substantial.
An extensive seismic survey
over a large area of the Barbados offshore has exposed considerable potential in this unexplored
acreage. There is also encouraging evidence of a correlation with the producing areas of Trinidad & Tobago.
For the last few years, the most talked about technology in the hydrocarbon exploration industry has undoubtedly
been Controlled Source Electromagnetic imaging, but what does the future hold for this important development?
The Raven Field in the Nile
Delta, discovered in 2004,
has proved the window to
a major new play in this
prolific geological province
and has de-risked a significant
volume of Egypt’s yetto-
find hydrocarbons.
Innovative thinking and a new play concept finds a giant gas field on
a lease block that had been explored for 50 years and drilled 11 times.
New leadership, new roads,
expanding cities, new found
wealth and freedom are
bringing dramatic changes
to China’s countryside and its
people. Has this also brought
with it new opportunities in
the energy sector?
Oil exploration in Australiahas
been fraught with disappointments in a relentless
land, but onshore basins such as the Cooper Basin can still yield surprises.
Commercial accumulations of liquid hydrocarbons have
remained elusive in East Africa,
despite numerous shows and
seeps. Could a reanalysis of the Petroleum Systemslead
to
renewed exploration?
The Laptev Sea Basin is a frontier Arctic basin explored by regional seismic only. Its
thick sedimentary cover is thought to contain numerous potential reservoirs, seals and
mature source rocks, and structural traps are probably abundant. The Lena river Delta
is of special interest for hydrocarbon entrapment.
Having produced over 15 Bbo (2.4 Bm3), Arctic Alaska is one of the most prolific oil producing regions in North America, yet most of the area remains sparsely explored.
The Los Angeles basin is one of the most prolific hydrocarbon basins in the world. This is due to rapid subsidence and deposition of organic-rich source beds next to turbidite reservoir sands that occurred over only a few millions of years.
Despite the much-vaunted emergence of the ‘Celtic Tiger economy’, the Irish offshore
has traditionally been perceived as a high-risk, high cost environment. Can the Irish
authorities change this perception in the industry?
Reprocessing of several seismic data sets acquired offshore Norway in the 1980’s have
demonstrated significant improvements in both resolution and structural imaging.
One of the last intact wildernesses left on earth, Papua New Guinea is experiencing an
unprecedented resurgence of interest from the hydrocarbon industry. Is it possible to
encourage the advances of modernisation and the oil industry without jeopardising
the ecology and culture of this amazing country?
Some of the most productive oil and gas acreage ever discovered lie adjacent to the site of this year’s AAPG National Convention in Long Beach. Separated by only 5 km, the “old, nearly depleted” Long Beach and Wilmington oil fields still offer exploitation opportunities.
The history of oil and gas exploration goes back a long way in Kazakhstan. In fact, the Emba-Caspiisk Company produced the first barrel of oil in 1899. This was from a well less than 50m deep on what became the Karachungul oil field. Nobel made the second discovery in the same region (Makat).
Recent deep gas and deep-water discoveriesin the Gulf of Mexico are pushing explorationtechnology to the limit. In many ways, the future success will depend on the ability of the geophysicalindustry to address the
technicalchallenges offered by deeper and more obscured geologic targets.
The Bristol Bay is a frontier basin with very limited seismic and well data available to the public. Preliminary analyses of the limited subsurface data coupled with surface outcrop data indicate the existence of a Tertiary petroleum system and possibility of an underlying Mesozoic petroleum system. The basin is considered as primarily a gasproneprovince.
The Covenant oil field lies along the Rocky Mountain Foreland fold and thrust belt that extends from the Canadian Arctic through the United States and into Central America. Prior to its discovery in late 2003, the complex geology of the central Utah thrustbelt had frustrated explorationists for over 50 years with 115 wells drilled without a discovery.
A recent onshore oil discovery proves that the potential of the Nile Delta is not confined to the deep offshore.
Since gas first flowed from the West Sole Field in the Southern North Sea in 1967 , the exploitation of hydrocarbons has been a major source of revenue for successive UK governments. After a partial decline in the 1990’s, the industry is once more buoyant, with more and more companies showing interest in the United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS).
A multitude of geological data suggests that the petroleum system is in place. Rich, voluminous source rocks, likely migration paths, good reservoir rocks and huge traps all make the Seychelles offshore basins a tempting target for companies ready to explore a frontier province.
Mozambican authorities have good reasons to be optimistic when embarking on a new exploration campaign. Seeps of oil and gas are well documented at several localities in the Rovuma Basin, and potential source rocks are considered to be present throughout the area. Good quality reservoir rocks with high porosity have also been identified during a recent onshore mapping project.
Recent exploration successes have fuelled interest in the Indian hydrocarbon industry.With the economy
booming and a vibrant, young,well-educated workforce, this may be a good time to investigate the interesting new hydrocarbon opportunities being offered by the Indian government.
A multitude of geological data suggests that the petroleum system is in place. Rich, voluminous source rocks, likely migration paths, good reservoir rocks and huge traps all make the Seychelles offshore basins a tempting target for companies ready to explore a frontier province.
After only a few small discoveries in what appeared to be favourable geological conditions, a major study of the petroleum system of the huge, immature basin was conducted. The subsequent well hit oil in Lower Tertiary sandstones, and the discovery was later proven to be a giant (>500 million bbls of recoverable oil) within the prolific Central African Rift.
In the barren landscape of the Syrian desert you may find an occasional drilling rig exploring for hydrocarbons. In the years to come several more rigs are expected to enter, as the Syrian authorities are now actively encouraging international oil companies to acquire acreage and drill for oil and gas. The next frontier, however, is the offshore, where no wells have yet been sunk.
Oil is flowing to the surface in several seeps within the license area, and nearby giant fields have been producing for decades. The well Tawke # 1 is certainly being drilled in a proven petroleum province, and the first well by a foreign company in Kurdistan is now testing a huge structure delineated by modern seismic data.
The Northeast Sakhalin Shelf, with several giant fields already discovered and put on production, is recognised as a world-class petroleum province. New seismic acquired in the rest of the Sea of Okhotsk indicate that there is more to be found.
Deep-water (>300m) oil production in the Gulf of Mexico began in 1979 with Shell's Cognac field that was discovered in 1975, 30 years ago. Since then, deep-water exploration and production has grown with tremendous advances in technology.
The sedimentary basins offshore West-Greenland cover an area comparable to the entire North Sea. As a new licensing is announced, geologists can demonstrate the probable presence of prolific source rocks, good reservoirs and enormous structures.
Two fields are currently being developed, significant amounts of oil and gas have already been found, and geological studies indicate that this is a promising exploration frontier, possibly making the Barents Sea a major gas and oil supplier in the future.
Acreage taken by new entrants to the Norwegian continental shelf has doubled many times in only a few years, and several independents have already succeeded in acquiring new licenses and boosting production in small fields. The explanation is high prospectivity, exploration incentives, cross-border cooperation and improved terms in combination with an active licensing policy.
Play fairway mapping is an excellent tool for screening and ranking acreage,whether for licensing round applications, asset acquisition or disposal. With increased exploration efforts, it is an effective way of reducing risk.
GeoPublishing, c/o NGU 7491-TRONDHEIM, NORWAY +47 73904090 / +47 90563595
