GIS-based Analysis for Petroleum Exploration - Case Study of Northern South America

Abstract

The petroleum industry uses geographic information systems (GIS) for mapping and database needs as GIS elucidates spatial relationships between geologic and geophysical data. Generally, however, the petroleum industry does not exploit the full potential of GIS for analysis in exploration activities. Multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) combines data showing areas best fulfilling specific criteria. There are many different MCE methodologies, all of which are subjective. Petroleum exploration requires a method which is spatial, flexible for combining data, considers the data’s interpretive nature, is geologically applicable, and is applicable for frontier areas or where there is little information regarding probabilities of petroleum. This study created an MCE method for petroleum exploration based on fuzzy logic which fulfills the requirements above using 16 subcriteria and 1 constraint combined in tiers to produce a favorability map of potential exploration. A case study shows new exploration areas in the Cretaceous, Paleogene, and Miocene. By comparing known producing fields to the favorability outputs of one non-geologic-age-specific and three geologic-age-specific favorability maps in the case study, the method is validated. It is concluded that the method can be applied in an exploration setting and is applicable for other regions of the world.