By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Aug. 28 -- A string of basins in the Greenland Sea off northeastern Greenland is probably more gas prone than previously thought but still would rank 19th in resources among 500 world oil and gas provinces if proved, the US Geological Survey said Aug. 28.
The 2007 assessment found mean values of almost 9 billion bbl of oil, 86 tcf of gas, and 8 billion bbl of NGL to be technically recoverable in the absence of sea ice. The USGS stressed that technology is not available for exploring or developing oil and gas under sea ice such as that off northeastern Greenland.
The survey plans to release new assessments of all arctic provinces in the next year as part of an effort to "provide consistent and comparable geologically based estimates of the potential additions to world oil and gas reserves."
The East Greenland Rift Basins Province covers 500,000 sq km, most of it in less than 500 m of water, between Greenland, Iceland, and Norway's Svalbard.
The survey's previous assessment, in 2000, gave the province a mean resource of 47 billion bbl of oil, 81 tcf of gas, and 4 billion bbl of NGL. The new assessment contains a larger "largest gas field" size at 18-plus tcf vs. 7.1 tcf in 2000 and a smaller "largest oil field" size at 2.5-plus billion bbl vs. 6.1 billion bbl in 2000. Minimum accumulations considered are 50 million bbl of oil and 300 bcf of gas, although 20 million boe was used in the previous assessment.
It is inferred that most of the province's hydrocarbons belong to an Upper Jurassic composite total petroleum system.
Underlying geological analysis by USGS and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland indicate that the province's burial and uplift history and source rock character suggest much greater gas generation than previously interpreted.
Five assessment units were considered: North and South Danmarkshavn Salt basins, Thetis basin, Northeast Greenland Volcanic Province, and Liverpool Land basin. The Danmarkshavn basins are estimated to contain most of the undiscovered hydrocarbons, and the Jameson Land basin and its subvolcanic extension were defined as assessment units but not assessed.
