India
The submerged Shiva crater in the Mumbai offshore basin, with 500 km diameter and 7 km of structural relief, has emerged as a viable candidate for the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction, said a publication by the Texas Tech University Museum, Lubbock, Tex.
The peak ring of the multiringed crater is the structural trap for oil and gas, wrote Sankar Chatterjee and three other authors.
Shiva has reserves in Miocene formations exceeding 8.4 billion bbl of oil, 24.2 tcf of gas, and 300 million bbl of natural gas liquids. The total 12.7 billion bbl of oil equivalent is from 165 fields of which 126 are 1 million boe or greater in size.
Shiva is at the juncture of India’s Saurashtra, Surat, Panna, Murad, and Shelf Margin basins.
Pakistan
GEMS International NV let a contract to SCAN Geophysical ASA, Oslo, to acquire 3,000 km of 2D seismic data off Pakistan for the Pakistani government agency National Institute of Oceanography.
The 1-month survey is to start in mid-November.
Handling the survey is the M/V Geo Searcher, which just completed surveying off India using a 10,000-m long streamer and high volume sources.
Norway
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate let a contact to Electromagnetic Geoservices (emgs), Trondheim, Norway, for a proprietary seabed logging survey of the Troms II area near the Lofoten Islands off northern Norway.
Hydrocarbon detection is carried out by a low-frequency electromagnetic source towed across an array of retrievable receivers placed on the seabed. Emgs, which has conducted more than 200 surveys, recently ordered a fifth vessel to meet growing demand.
Louisiana
Ensight Partners III, private Shreveport independent, and Meridian Petroleum PLC, London, will conduct a field development study of Calvin gas field in Winn Parish in early 2007 under a 50-50 cost and production split.
The companies will follow with a detailed plan of exploitation in Cretaceous Rodessa and Sligo/Pettet down to Calvin Deep and Troy lime.
Meanwhile, Meridian is completing the Calvin 36-1 well and plans flow tests.
Montana
First Star Resources Inc., Vancouver, BC, plans to purchase 100% working interest in Mosser Dome oil field in Yellowstone County from Big Snowy Resources LP, Billings.
The field has 21 wells on 360 acres that produce a total of 50 b/d of 22° gravity oil from the Lower Cretaceous Greybull sand at 1,000 ft. Closing is expected by Feb. 1, 2007.
The field, which has produced more than 500,000 bbl since discovery in 1936, may also have potential in the shallower Muddy and Basal sands.
Washington
Comet Ridge Ltd., Perth, said its US unit St. Helens Energy LLC bid successfully on 7-year leases covering 18,159 acres in the nonproducing Grays Harbor basin along the Pacific Coast southwest of Olympia, Wash.
St. Helens Energy is receiving results of 450 line-miles of reprocessed 2D seismic data, and prospect and lead generation is under way. More seismic is to be acquired in early 2007.
The acquired leases are largely contiguous with the 420,000 acres the company holds under an exclusive 2-year option in the Grays Harbor basin. No further details of that option were available.
