Integrating New Seismic Technology and Regional Basin Geology Now a Must

Abstract

Management Since the discovery of the giant Tupi-Lula pre-salt complex in the Santos Basin of Brazil, explorers have been integrating new seismic technology advances with the fundamentals of regional basin geology to extend the pre-salt play across the Atlantic margin into deep waters and below the salt off the west coast of Africa. In 2005, Petrobras drilled a wildcat well on the Parati prospect in the deep waters of the Santos Basin, and encountered condensate gas below a thick layer of salt. The following year, Petrobras and its partners, BG Group and Galp Energia, announced that the Tupi wildcat, drilled to 16,060 ft in almost 7,000 ft of water, flowed at 4,900 B/D of sweet 30°API crude oil, 0.7 sulphur content, and 6.6 MMcf/D gas on a ⅝-in choke. This confirmed that a new geologic play had been discovered below the salt. Over the next few years, exploration efforts continued in this new pre-salt play, resulting in additional discoveries in the Santos and to the north in the Campos and Espirito Santo basins. Agencia Nacional do Petroleo (ANP) studies suggested that the charge and accumulation models for this new pre-salt cluster area of the Santos Basin contained reserves exceeding 30 billion bbl and possibly as large as 60 billion bbl of oil reserves. Though the thick layers of salt above the oil accumulations create challenges in seismic imaging and exploratory drilling, the salt has also served, through geologic time, as a superb seal that allows thick columns of oil to accumulate and be preserved. Many exploration companies have already constructed regional geologic and plate tectonic models that recognize that these world-class pre-salt hydrocarbon accumulations off the east coast of Brazil may have counterparts on the conjugate margin of the Atlantic Basin in the deep waters offshore Congo, Gabon, Angola, and Namibia. A geologic model from Cobalt International shows a cross section of the Atlantic rift system that predicts similar geology between the two margins (Fig. 1).