The Chernyshev Swell: Supertrap or Waste Zone?

Abstract

Abstract Several years ago the Chernyshev swell was regarded as one of the most promising areas for petroleum exploration in the Timan Pechora basin. This was mainly due to an outcome of drilling of a 1-Vorgamusur well which targeted a new exploration play related to a subthrust zone. The well encountered an oil zone which yielded an uncontrollable oil blowout. Consequently a serious interest of oil and gas companies aroused. They rushed to secure prospective acreage on the newly established trend. Since then significant exploration efforts, including new seismic acquisition and drilling of several wells, have failed to deliver commercial volumes of hydrocarbons. As a result, prospectivity of the area has been downgraded and much of the exploration acreage was relinquished. The failure was explained mainly with poor qualities of reservoirs and unfavorable preservation conditions related to intense faulting resulting in breaching of seals. A critical review of G&G data suggest that the unsatisfactory outcome of the past exploration may to a large extent reflect shortcomings in the understanding of regional geology and inadequate technical solutions, rather than scarcity of oil and gas endowment of the Chernyshev swell. A reinterpretation of the regional structural geology provides vital clues for understanding the reasons of the past failures and permits the identification on new potentially high-impact opportunities.