Seismic data highlights potential play in Mizzen basin offshore Ireland

Aug. 18, 2014
Fastnet Oil & Gas has issued updates on its exploration activities offshore Ireland and Morocco.

Offshore staff

DUBLIN, IrelandFastnet Oil & Gas has issued updates on its exploration activities offshore Ireland and Morocco.

In March 2013, the company committed to an extensive 3D seismic survey overDeep Kinsale and the Mizzen basin off southern Ireland.

OverDeep Kinsale, the interpreted data has revealed five reservoir targets that could hold substantial in-place oil, based on a structural size of up to 120 sq km (46 sq mi).

Analysis also confirms potential for reservoir development and has reduced the risk of reservoir compartmentalization, two legacy issues that hampered the company’s prior farm-out attempts, which were based on limited 2D seismic coverage.

Over the Mizzen area, there appears to be potential for a new frontier exploration basin that is the conjugate margin equivalent of the Flemish Pass and Jeanne d’Arc basins offshoreeastern Canada. The seismic data has defined new amplitude-supported potential gas structures and large stratigraphic traps that could hold multiple tcf of gas, along with oil traps.

Offshore Morocco, although the Kosmos-operatedFA-1 exploration well that Fastnet participated in earlier this year did not discover commercial volumes of hydrocarbons, it did encounter live oil in the Lower Cretaceous.

In addition, the well proved that all aspects of the petroleum system exist apart from reservoir thickness and quality, Fastnet claims. The well was testing a new play concept in the region, and data from FA-1 and Cairn’s FD-1 Foum Draa offshore should lead to improved targeting of the main reservoir fairways in future.

The Cretaceous remains a major target in the Foum Assaka concession based on analogies with the Moroccan conjugate margin equivalent of Nova Scotia.

08/18/2014