Evaluating Petroleum Systems Along the Leeward Antilles Island Arc, Southern Caribbean

Abstract

The offshore region of northern South America, specifically, the Gulf of Venezuela, Dutch Antilles and Venezuelan islands (Leeward Antilles), is currently under frontier exploration. Geologically, the this province formed due to diachronous west-to-east Cretaceous to Recent collision between the Caribbean and South American plates. The region is characterized by Tertiary terrigeneous sediments and carbonate banks, lying on top of deformed and metamorphosed oceanic related rocks of Caribbean origin. In 2009, a large giant gas field discovery was made in the Gulf of Venezuela, La Perla field, accounting for the largest gas discovery in South America during the last decade (~15 TCF). The La Perla field re-opens a new full trend of exploration along Caribbean terranes. However, the region is underexplored and not well understood due to few wells and outcrops. In this study, we applied basin modeling to a regional E-W transect along the Leeward Antilles (Dutch Antilles and Venezuelan islands) to evaluate the hydrocarbon potential of the basins in this region and the effect of the different crustal elements that interact along the collision zone.