Deepwater structures capable of having billion oil barrels each

By NZPA

Tuesday 14th August 2007

Several structures within the Deepwater Taranaki Basin are each capable of containing reserves of more than a billion barrels of oil, says the company with an exploration permit for much of the area.

Colorado-based Global Resource Holdings today said a new comprehensive interpretation of its 55,830sq km permit area had been finished by GNS Science.

For the first time, all the available data from the block had been incorporated into a single integrated interpretation, the company, which was awarded the permit a year ago, said.

The thick sedimentary section present in the permit area included a large delta, and deltas were commonly regions of prolific petroleum production.

Source rocks included the extensive Rakopi Formation, the source rock for oil in the Maui, Maari and Tui fields, which was up to a kilometre thick and covered an area of nearly 20,000sq km within the permit area, Global said.

Basin modelling showed the Rakopi Formation and other units within the delta had expelled large volumes of oil in the past five million years.

Reservoir rocks of various ages were recognised within many structures ideally placed to trap much of the expelled oil.

The largest structure mapped so far was the Romney trend, in 1600 metres of water.

Modelling suggested the structure may be charged with 1.1 to 1.65 billion barrels of oil, plus 1.7 to 2.7 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas, the company said. Maui had about 4 TCF of gas.

A new 2D proprietary seismic survey was planned for early 2008 to allow more precise mapping of known prospects and leads, to confirm prospects within the Merino trend, and to reconnoitre regions of the permit previously not covered by seismic.

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