By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Nov. 25 – Global Resource Holdings LLLP, Littleton, Colo., is seeking farmout partners to explore the 8.1-million-acre PEP 38451 in the deepwater Taranaki basin off New Zealand.
GNS Science and Australian Worldwide Exploration have completed seismic interpretation reports based on 3,400 line-km of proprietary 2D seismic shot in December 2008 and January 2009. The reports confirm that all of the essential elements of the petroleum system are present.
A thick sedimentary section includes a large untested Late Cretaceous delta that contains significant volumes of source rocks, excellent reservoir facies, and good seals.
Global’s newly processed seismic data images potential source rocks in the extensive Rakopi Formation coal measures that are confidently tied to well data. The Rakopi formation, the proven source rock for oil in Maui, Maari, and Tui fields, is up to 1 km thick and covers an area of nearly 20,000 sq km in PEP 38451.
Other potential source rocks include Jurassic coal measures, as penetrated in Conoco’s Waka Nui-1 well, and Cretaceous marine prodelta deposits. Basin modeling shows the Rakopi formation below the shelf and other units within the delta have expelled large volumes of oil in the last 5 million years. Reservoir rocks of various ages are recognized within many structures ideally placed to trap much of the expelled oil.
The Late Cretaceous is thought to contain the primary target comprising fluvial and marine sands interleaved with coaly units in the Rakopi formation and marine sands in the succeeding North Cape formation. Secondary targets include extensive turbidite fan and channel deposits of Neogene age similar to the Mount Messenger and Mangaa formation reservoirs for Ngatoro and Kaimiro oil fields and Kaewa gas field.
Photo from Odfjell Drilling.
Photo from bp.
