Large structures seen in Taoudeni basin

March 31, 2006
A first-time comprehensive review of existing exploration data on the Taoudeni basin in Mali and Mauritania showed large to regional scale structures, said Baraka Petroleum Ltd., Perth.

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Mar. 31 -- A first-time comprehensive review of existing exploration data on the Taoudeni basin in Mali and Mauritania showed large to regional scale structures, said Baraka Petroleum Ltd., Perth.

The company is discussing farmouts with interested parties.

Satyavan Reymond, Baraka's chief operating officer, said the desktop review of reprocessed seismic, magnetic, and well data "confirmed the expected stratigraphy and favorable structural style, as well as delineating the extent of the Ordovician and Infra-Cambrian play fairways in Baraka's 260,000 sq km gross acreage holding in the Taoudeni basin."

Ordovician and Infra-Cambrian formations are producing 1.23 million b/d of oil and 445,000 b/d of condensate in the nearby and related Ahnet and Illizi basins in Algeria, Reymond noted.

"Within the Taoudeni, the seismically observed structures are large to regional scale anticlinal features and large monoclines with widths typically in excess of 10 km, which are expected to extend laterally over large areas and possibly have closure over several hundred square kilometers," he added.

Baraka identified 40 oil and gas leads along the defined structural trends. The company noted that Taoudeni is practically unexplored, with four wells and 12,500 line-km of seismic in an area more than twice the size of Texas (see maps, OGJ, May 23, 2005, p. 39).

A $3.7 million regional airborne gravity and magnetic survey of Baraka's five Mali blocks is 20% complete and is to be finished by September 2006.