The Sureste Basin of Mexico: its framework, future oil exploration opportunities and key challenges ahead

Abstract

AbstractThe Sureste Basin of Mexico is a story of split exploration maturity, with more than 139 discoveries in the onshore and shallow-water area of the Sureste in a series of stacked prolific plays, but less than 12 exploration wildcat wells on the Campeche slope, in water depths greater than 500 m. Over 50% of the basin area lies in this under-explored deep-water Campeche slope, with future oil potential shown by the presence of wide seabed oil seepage indicating a regionally mature world-class source rock to be present. With the 2014 opening of Mexico's oil industry, basin-wide 3D seismic imaging of this under-explored deep-water extension to the Sureste Basin is now in the hands of international oil companies that hold substantial exploration well commitments over the next few years. This paper discusses the hydrocarbon play potential of both the classic Tertiary slope clastic reservoir systems as well as the significant Mesozoic carbonate reservoir potential for which there are fewer analogues outside of Mexico.Subsurface challenges originating from dry hole analysis relate to charge timing and deep charge focus, subsalt deep structural imaging, deep reservoir quality issues and uncertainty in column height prediction, given the high-relief nature of many undrilled salt related structures.