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Basement rocks are important oil and gas reservoirs in a number of countries
and serve as a reminder that in areas where basement is not too deep,
basement should be considered as a valid exploration objective. Basement
reservoirs include fractured or weathered granites, fractured quartzites, and
metamorphic rocks such as fractured schists or argillites.
The following is a quotation from the classic paper on oil in basement reservoirs
by K.K. Landes et al (1960 AAPG) titled Petroleum Resources in Basement
Rocks which stated “Commercial oil deposits in basement rocks are not
geological ‘accidents’ but are oil accumulations which obey all the rules of oil
sourcing, migration and entrapment; therefore in areas of not too deep
basement, oil deposits within basement should be explored with the same
professional skill and zeal as accumulations in the overlying sediments”.
Although this paper was published almost 50 years ago, the advice of Landes
and his co-workers still applies to today.
In South America, basement reservoirs produce oil in Venezuela (La Paz field) &
Brazil (Carmopolis field). Oil is produced in the USA from basement in California,
Kansas and Texas. In North Africa, basement oil and gas production occurs in
Libya (e.g. Nafoura field), Algeria (e.g. Hassi Mesaoud field) and Egypt (fields in
the Gulf of Suez). In the Middle East, in the last decade in Yemen, very
important oil reservoirs have been discovered in granite basement. Significant
basement reservoirs occur in Russia’s West Siberia Basin and also in China in
“buried hill” basement structures. Oil and gas production is also obtained from
basement rocks in the Clair field in the UK part of the North Sea. In Southeast
Asia, very prolific basement reservoirs are the main contributor of oil production
in Viet Nam. Giant size gas fields (up to 5 TCF) are major gas producing
reservoirs in South Sumatra.
In all of West Africa, oil or gas has never been produced commercially from
basement reservoirs. Only in the onshore area of Cabinda, Angola has oil been
tested from basement in one or two wells drilled in the early 1970’s. The follow-
up was minimal. Very little information is known about the basement reservoirs in
Cabinda.
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The tendency in West Africa has been to terminate drilling prior to penetrating
basement. Therefore it is possible that there are oil and gas fields “left behind”
in areas in West Africa where basement was not evaluated by drilling but where
basement is likely fractured or weathered and occurs within structural closure.
Also for such oil fields to occur, mature oil or gas source rocks must be close to
the basement and cap rocks must overlay the possible basement reservoir.
Best practices for producing oil and gas from basement include:
• Necessity to drill production wells near-perpendicular to the dominant
fracture system.
• Need for focused 3D seismic coverage to highlight fracture patterns in
basement.
• Extensive core coverage is needed to provide information on rock types
and reservoir parameters.
• Development wells must be sufficiently deep to fully drain the reservoir
(e.g. wells in the La Paz field in Venezuela typically are drilled 500 meters
into basement).
• There are a number of cases, such as the La Paz field in Venezuela
where the basement oil field was discovered much later (30 years) in the
life of the field, with the attention initially focused on the producing of the
shallow reservoirs. Accordingly, in the case where an operator is
producing oil or gas from reservoirs in sediments relatively close to
basement, a ‘second look’ at the basement may be warranted, especially
using today’s leading edge seismic and drilling technology.
• In a general sense, fractured granites and quartzites are the optimum
basement reservoirs. Weathered granites can also be excellent
reservoirs. Rocks such as schists are less attractive since they are ductile
and tend to ‘smear’ when subjected to tectonic stress. The high mafic
content of schists also negates the creation of secondary porosity by
weathering. Likewise, granites and quartzites are more likely to provide
attractive, highly porous ‘granite wash sands’ whereas schists do not
erode and produce such attractive reservoirs.
The author of this poster paper has been closely following the subject of oil & gas
in basement reservoirs since he was involved with the development of such a
field in Sumatra, Indonesia in 1982 while working for PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia
(joint subsidiary of Texaco and Chevron). The following are brief summaries of
the types of basement reservoirs in a select number of fields worldwide and
comments are provided regarding ‘best practices’ associated with production
from such fields.
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into basement in the La Paz field is 500 meters (1,700 feet). This illustrates the
case with many basement oil fields worldwide, which is that it is important to drill
deep into the reservoir rather than terminating the well soon after penetrating
basement.
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will be pipelined to the Bach Ho’s production facilities which now have excess
productive capacity.
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The Beruk Northeast field was discovered in 1976 by Beruk NE-1 which flowed
1,680 BOPD from fractured Pre-Tertiary basement quartzite. The first
development well, Beruk NE-2 was drilled off-structure, encountered tight granite
and was a dry hole. Two subsequent development wells (Beruk NE-3 & 4) were
drilled into poor reservoirs consisting of argillite and hornsfelsic basement which
tested at some 200 – 300 BOPD. The last well in the field was the Beruk NE-5
which tested 2,252 barrels fluid per day (34% water cut).
Rather than carrying out more production testing, the wells were tied-in and
placed on production. Rapid water influx was experienced and production of only
2 million barrels was achieved. In hindsight it was realized that the basement
lithologies were very complicated and variable and marginally productive in the
case of the argillite and hornsfelsic basement reservoirs. Also, the geoscientists
and engineers did not recognize the existence of multiple fracture patterns which
can result in water bypassing the oil and leading to unexpected rapid water influx.
The “lesson learned” from this field was that such fields require detailed
geological and engineering work to accurately determine the commerciality of
any basement oil discovery.
Concluding Remarks
The conventional way of thinking, certainly in the past, has been that the top of
basement underlying the sediments is most likely tight and, in oil patch folk lore
was generally viewed as “tombstone”. Even the sands near the top of basement
were often described tongue-in-cheek as “the suitcase sands” since that signified
that the well was near to total depth and likely a dry hole and so it was time for
the geologist to pack up his suitcase and depart from the wellsite.
However, the author believes that significant oil and gas fields in basement rocks
remain to be discovered worldwide. Unconventional geological thinking and risk-
taking has led to many of the world’s major oil and gas discoveries and such
strategies will also reward the explorers searching for oil and gas in basement.
Koning, T. & Darmono, F.X., 1984, “The Geology of the Beruk Northeast Field,
Central Sumatra: Oil Production From Pre-Tertiary Basement Rocks”,
proceedings of the 13th Annual Convention, Indonesia Petroleum Association,
Jakarta.
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Koning, T. 2000, “Oil Production From Basement Reservoirs – Examples from
Indonesia, USA and Venezuela”, Proceedings of the 16th World Petroleum
Congress, Calgary.