Offshore staff
OSLO, Norway – Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) has acquired 8,840 line km (5,493 mi) of 2D data in the Russian Barents and Kara seas.
The survey, performed in partnership with Geology Without Limits, started last year using the vesselAkademik Lazarevand forms part of a multi-year, long-offset, reflection seismic program.
Scope of work includes broadening knowledge of the regional geology, tying the sedimentary basins, exploring certain geological structures, and identifying potential well locations in Barents and Kara seas areas.
Last year’s research showed that the northern part of theKara Sea, usually marked out as the Kara Plate, is strongly prospective for hydrocarbons, particularly oil.
Until recently the Kara Plate has been one of the least explored regions of the Barents-Kara shelf. Geophysical investigations started during the 1970s followed by first offshore drilling in the early 1980s. The area is ice-bound for most of the year.
PGS describes the Kara Sea as a complex mosaic of basins and platforms, which underwent intercontinental sedimentation between 240 million and 60 million years ago, after which the area bordered the developing Atlantic and Arctic oceans.
The proliferation of multi-kilometer thick Palaeozoic carbonate complexes suggests that the Kara Plate is similar to the Timan-Pechora Plate, one ofRussia’s main oil producing regions. Additional promising features include the thickness of carbonate cover and diversity of facies settings.
Deposits of deepwater back-reef depressions are potential oil-source rocks, while the reefs themselves could be promising reservoirs. There appear to be numerous encouraging structures in deposits of all Palaeozoic systems, with anticlinal, stratigraphic, and lithological potential traps.
8/6/2013
