Assessment of Undiscovered Conventional Oil and Gas Resources of Thailand

Abstract

This reference is for an abstract only. A full paper was not submitted for this conference. Abstract The U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean volumes of 1.6 billion barrels of undiscovered conventional oil and 17 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered conventional natural gas in three geologic provinces of Thailand using a geology-based methodology. Most of the undiscovered conventional oil and gas resource is estimated to be in the offshore Thai Basin Province. Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessed the potential for undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources within 23 geologic provinces of southeast Asia as part of the USGS World Petroleum Resources Project (Schenk and others, 2010). This report summarizes the assessment of conventional resources in three provinces of Thailand—Khorat Plateau Province, Thai Basin Province, and Thai Cenozoic Basins Province (fig. 1). Prior to the assessment, the geologic framework and petroleum systems were developed for each province based mainly on published literature, which is extensive for petroleum systems in southeast Asia (for example, Todd and others, 1997; Doust and Sumner, 2007; Hall, 2009). Assessment units (AU) were defined within each petroleum system, and each AU was quantitatively assessed for undiscovered conventional oil and nonassociated gas accumulations (table 1). Co-product ratios were used to calculate the volumes of associated gas (gas in oil fields) and natural gas liquids. Exploration and discovery history was a critical part of the methodology used to estimate sizes and numbers of undiscovered oil and gas accumulations.