Petroleum Prospectivity in the Namibe and Southern Benguela Basins, Offshore Angola

Abstract

The underexplored offshore deepwater basins of Angola hold tremendous potential for hydrocarbons. These basins have marked similarities with the prolific hydrocarbon producing region of the Brazilian margin which abutted the Angola offshore area prior to the opening of the South Atlantic In 2011, PGS in association with Sonangol acquired a 12,700 km regional 2D grid using a dual-sensor towed streamer systems to provide broadband seismic imaging to address the hydrocarbon potential of the frontier Kwanza, Benguela and Namibe basins of Angola. This high quality seismic has been used to enhance the knowledge of potential petroleum systems of the Namibe and Southern Benguela basins. Horst and graben structures that formed during rift phases are now visible in the depth-migrated seismic data and are overlain by 3-5 km of post-rift sediments. Thick salt, which is well known to the north, extends into the southern Benguela and northern Namibe basins. Post-rift channel and fan structures can be identified as high amplitude anomalies throughout the basin. These are observed to pinch out on the flanks of volcanic high structures and salt diapirs. The improved imaging and resolution provided by these data significantly de-risk exploration in a frontier deepwater area where well costs are high.