FRONTIER EXPLORATION

Frontier Exploration – term to describe the first episode of exploration in a basin.

- The time a basin spends time on frontier exploration stage is based on two factors:
(1) Technical
o Climate
o Terrain
o Location of target (depth of water column, access to thick jungles, etc)
(2) Political
o Border dispute
o Financial constraints
o Licensing requirements
o Economic and political policies

Frontier exploration aims to answer these questions:

- Where are the source rocks, reservoirs and seals?

- What is the basin history?
- What type of basin is being explored?
- Does the basin contain source rocks?
- Are the source rocks mature for petroleum generation?
- Will such source rocks, if proven, be oil – or gas – prone?
- What is the stratigraphy of the basin?

Technical activities done during the conduct of frontier exploration:

1. ACQUISITION OF ACREAGE
o Early access
o Licensing process
o Licensing areas
o Farm ins and outs and other deals
2. IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF DIRECT PETROLEUM INDICATORS
- Advantageous if can be done even before the acquisition of acreage

Leaks and seepage can be due to the following:

1. Seal Failure

Types of seal failure:

 capillary failure – normal under hydrostatic pressure
 fracture failure – occurs in high-overpressure situation
 Types of seepage:

a. widespread pervasive seepage but low intensity

b. pervasive seepage over small area, low intensity

c. local but very fast seepage

 Another way of knowing if there is petroleum in the area is by analyzing the seismic data.

2. Tertiary Migration – refers to the movement of petroleum from trap to surface

Migration Mechanisms:
a. Lateral Migration
b. Vertical Migration
c. Effects of fractures and faults
d. Effects of salt

3. STUDY OF THE TYPE OF BASIN

- Involves the study of basin and its history
Types of Basins

1. Extensional basins, generated by divergent plate motion

Two main mechanisms operate to create extensional basins:

a. ACTIVE RIFTING - rifting can occur when a thermal plume or sheet impinges on the base of the
lithosphere. The lithosphere heats up, weakens, and can rift.
b. PASSIVE RIFTING – is the continental stretching and thinning, which has happened during all major
continental breakups.

Intracratonic Basins: sags

 Most tend to be broadly oval

 The total sediment infill package increases from edge to center and major faults are
conspicuous by their absence
 Such basins could represent the products of extension where the degree of
extension is almost zero, but where the area has suffered thermal subsidence
following uplift due to thermal plume or sheet.

Rift Basins

 the specific locations of rifts may follow old lines of weakness

 rifts may form above mantle hotspots
 the hotspots cause thermal doming and the formation of triple junctions that then
act as the rift lines.
 Continental rifting is but the opening stage of a process that can lead to full
breakup of a continental mass and the generation of oceanic crust between the
fragmented parts.
 Rifting is often associated with volcanism. The degree of uplift and the rate of rifting
are controlled by the magnitude of the thermal disturbance and the stresses applied
to the plate.

Passive Margins

 the style of tectonics changes as the passive margin matures

 in areas of low sediment input – that is, distant from major deltas – carbonate
factories can form on top of the drowned rift blocks
 2. Basins generated during convergent plate motion

- The style of basin development associated with convergent plate motion is highly varied,
and depends upon the interplay of several factors

These factors includes:

a. Types of crust undergoing convergence:
 Continental to continental
 Oceanic to oceanic
 Oceanic to continental
b. Age of oceanic crust undergoing subduction at the margin

Arc systems

- Arcs are characterized by six major components. From overridden oceanic plate to overriding plate,
these components are as follows:

 An outer rise on the oceanic plate.

o This occurs as an arch on the abyssal plain, the flexural forebulge of the subducting
oceanic plate.

 A trench.
o Commonly more than 10km deep
o Contains pelagic deposits and fine-grained turbidites
o Generated from subduction of the oceanic plate
o Not considered to be prospective from petroleum exploration
o Given current technology, their water depth alone precludes oil exploration

 A subduction complex.
o This comprises stacked fragments of oceanic crust and its pelagic cover, together
with material derived from the arc.

 A fore-arc basin.
o This lies between the subduction complex and the volcanic arc
o Petroleum provinces in fore-arc basins are rare.

 The volcanic (magmatic) arc.

 The back-arc region.
o This is floored by either oceanic or continental lithosphere
o May or may not develop a basin
o Extensional back-arc basins develop where the velocity of roll-back exceeds the
velocity of the overriding plate
Foreland Basins

- The importance of foreland basins as petroleum provinces outranks that of other basins generated
by convergent plate motions.
- Typically several thousands of kilometers long and parallel to the arc and thrust belt
- Sediment accumulates both ahead of frontal thrust area in the foredeep and within smaller basins
that occur on top of the thrust complex.

3. Strike-slip basins
- Strike-slip or wrench basins occur where sections of the crust move laterally with respect to
each other.
- Strike-slip systems commonly involve some oblique relative movement of the plates to
either side.
- The form of basins develop under transtension differs from those formed under
transpression.

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