New insights on subsurface energy resources in the Southern North Sea Basin area

Abstract

The Southern North Sea Basin area, stretching from the UK to the Netherlands, has a rich hydrocarbon exploration and production history. The past, present and expected future hydrocarbon and geothermal exploration trends in this area are discussed for eight key lithostratigraphic intervals, ranging from the Lower Carboniferous to Cenozoic. In the period between 2007 and 2017, a total of 95 new hydrocarbon fields were discovered, particularly in Upper Carboniferous, Rotliegend and Triassic reservoirs. Nineteen geothermal systems were discovered in the Netherlands onshore, mainly targeting aquifers in the Rotliegend and Upper Jurassic/Lower Cretaceous formations. Although the Southern North Sea Basin area is mature in terms of hydrocarbon exploration, it is shown that with existing and new geological insights, additional energy resources are still being proven in new plays such as the basal Upper Rotliegend (Ruby discovery) for natural gas and a new Chalk play for oil. It is predicted that hydrocarbon exploration in the Southern North Sea Basin area will probably experience a slight growth in the coming decade before slowing down, as the energy transition further matures. Geothermal exploration is expected to continue growing in the Netherlands onshore as well as gain more momentum in the UK. Since the publication of the Petroleum Geological Atlas of the Southern Permian Basin (SPB) (Doornenbal & Stevenson 2010), which gave a comprehensive overview based on more than 150 years of petroleum exploration and research from onshore UK to Poland, the basin has continued to see successful exploration wells drilled together with a diversification of drilling targets. This paper summarizes the activities over the period 2007-17 to give an update on new exploration insights. The focus of this paper is more limited than the entire SPB Atlas area and concentrates on its western part between latitudes

Sedimentology, Palaeogeography and Diagenesis of the Upper Permian (Z2) Hauptdolomit Formation on the Southern Margin of the Mid North Sea High and Implications for Reservoir Prospectivity

“…In this area, Namurian to middle Dinantian strata sub-crop the base-Permian unconformity (Patruno et al, 2018;Mulholland et al, 2018). This unconformity is folded and faulted, and perhaps was not completely peneplained during the Zechstein transgression, The Southern Permian Basin developed in the foreland of the Variscan foldbelt and was bounded and defined by massifs including local highs such as the Mid North Sea High (Doornenbal et al, 2019). The basin was episodically flooded by marine waters from the north which resulted in cycles of carbonate and evaporite deposition (Fyfe and Underhill, 2023 this issue ;Tucker, 1991;Peryt et al, 2010) After the initial transgression at the beginning of each Zechstein cycle, carbonates such as the Z2 Hauptdolomit Formation were deposited before the water body became increasingly restricted and more saline, leading to evaporite deposition.…”

Analogue modelling of basin inversion: a review and future perspectives

“…Pb-Z mineralizations and Fe-Cu-Au deposits, Sibson and Scott, 1998;Groves and Bierlein, 2007;Hageman et al, 2016;Gibson et al, 2017;Gibson and Edwards, 2020;Liang et al, 2021). Finally, a thorough understanding of basin evolution, including basin inversion, is also of great interest for geothermal energy projects since tectonic displacements can strongly affect the thermal profile of the subsurface (Sandiford, 1999;Edwards et al, 2015;Vidal and Genter, 2018;Doornenbal et al, 2019;Békési et al, 2020;Weibel et al, 2020;Willems et al, 2020). Possible future applications, including exploration for natural hydrogen, are presented in Sect.…”

Introduction to the geothermal play and reservoir geology of the Netherlands

“…The Geological atlas of the subsurface of the Netherlandsonshore (NITG-TNO, 2004) provides broad regional structural element maps for the different geological periods. A broader northwest European context is given in the Petroleum geological atlas of the Southern Permian Basin Area (Doornenbal & Stevenson, 2010) and its update by Doornenbal et al (2019).…”