Exploration discovery and hydrocarbon accumulation characteristics of the Doseo strike-slip and inverted basin, Chad

Abstract

Several international oil companies had conducted petroleum exploration, but failed to make any commercially viable discoveries in the Doseo Basin for over 30 years. In this article, an integrated analysis, based on the latest seismic and drilling data combined with exploration practice and tectonic, sedimentary as well as petroleum-geological characteristics of the basin, has been conducted with the aim to disclose the key factors of hydrocarbon accumulation and enrichment and then to find the potential petroleum plays. The Doseo Basin in Chad is a Meso-Cenozoic lacustrine rift basin developed on the Precambrian crystalline basement in the Central African Shear Zone. It is a half graben rift controlled by the strike-slip fault at the northern boundary, and can be divided into two sub-basins, an uplift and a slope. The basin experienced two rifting periods in the Cretaceous and was strongly inverted with the erosion thickness of 800–1000 m during the Eocene, and then entered the depression and extinction period. Structurally, a large number of normal faults and strike-slip faults are identified in the basin, and the boundary faults are inverted faults with normal at first. The main structural styles include inverted anticlines, fault noses, complex fault-blocks and flower structures. The Lower Cretaceous is the main sedimentary strata, which are divided into the Mangara Group, Kedeni, Doba and Koumra Formations from bottom to up. Two transgressive-regressive cycles developed in the Lower Cretaceous indicates with mainly lacustrine, fluvial, delta, braided-delta, fan-delta sandstone and mudstone. The effective source rock in the basin is the deep-lacustrine mudstone of the Lower Cretaceous containing the type I and type II1 organic matters. Furthermore, Inverted anticlines and fault-complicated blocks comprise the main trap types and the Kedeni Uplift is the most favorable play, followed by the Northern Steep Slope and Southern Gentle Slope. Lateral sealing capacity of faults controls the hydrocarbon abundance.