Future Petroliferous Provinces of venezuela

Abstract

Recent regional studies have indicated that a resource potential greater than 40 BBOE remains to be found in Venezuela. Evidence for new petroliferous provinces that hold this potential will be presented in this paper.Venezuela is a showcase for the exceptional foredeep basins of northern South America, together with outstanding oil source rocks and reservoirs next to unconformities within these foredeeps.In the southwest of the country, sandstones above and below the foredeep unconformity, form potential strat-traps, a possible western extension of the prolific Eastern Venezuelan Basin (EVB). This would be an exceptional area to evaluate weathered/fractured basement plus Jurassic fills of half grabens located below the passive margin sequence. Also in the west, the northern and southern flanks of the Mérida Andes, with 70 oil seeps, remains virtually unexplored.Of importance are: the 25.000 feet of mostly Neogene sediments offshore the Orinoco Delta where five wells have tested 5 TCF and condensate; a 100 mile long diapir wall in the middle of the EVB with three major fields, and the 70 mile long downthrown Anaco inverted structure, tested in two localities. The mountain fronts to the north are being drilled to evaluate the northern extension of the giant Furrial trend and a new thrust play to the northwest.The 150.000 sq km offshore area has only 50 wildcats, most drilled as tests for conventional traps; however, complex strike-slip structures, strat-traps and deep water plays could exist. Oil seeps and shows in wells indicate this is an oil prone basin.

Review of the chronostratigraphic charts in the Sinú-San Jacinto basin based on new seismic stratigraphic interpretations

“…Escalona and Mann (2011) proposed that the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous passive margin phase was interrupted by progressive west-to-east collision of the Caribbean arc with the passive margin in the Late Cretaceous in Colombia (Cooper et al, 1995); in the Late Paleoceneeearly Eocene in the Maracaibo basin region (Pindell and Barrett, 1990;Lugo and Mann, 1995;Mann et al, 2006;Escalona and Mann, 2006a,b); and during the Neogene in the area of eastern Venezuela and Trinidad (Erlich and Barrett, 1992;Babb and Mann, 1999;Di Croce et al, 1999;Pindell and Kennan, 2001). As a result of diachronous convergence between the South American and Caribbean plates, a more than 500-km-wide and 1500-kmlong zone of transpressive and transtensional deformation and a series of sedimentary Cenozoic basins were formed along the margin (Pindell and Barrett, 1990;Lugo and Mann, 1995;Mann, 1999;Audemard and Serrano, 2001). In this study, we added that the Caribbean passive margin in Colombia was not interrupted by collisional events, but partially and locally affected by concurrent diachronic inversion pulses since Paleocene to recent.…”