USGS estimates WSB's undiscovered oil, gas resources

Nick Snow
Washington Editor

WASHINGTON, DC, Aug. 20 -- There are an estimated 3.66 billion bbl of undiscovered oil and 651 tcf of natural gas north of the Arctic Circle in Russia's West Siberian Basin Province, the US Geological Survey said in a recent report.

The province is the world's largest petroleum basin, with an areal extent of nearly 2.2 million sq km and a total discovered volume of more than 360 billion boe, the US Department of the Interior agency said in the report it prepared as part of its Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal program.

Exploration has led to the discovery of several giant oil and gas fields, including the Urengoi gas field, with more than 3,500 tcf of reserves, and the Samotlor oil field, with reserves of more than 28 billion bbl of oil, the report said.

It evaluated two assessment units in the province's northern part above the Arctic Circle: the Northern West Siberian Onshore Gas AU, which includes primarily Cretaceous sandstone reservoirs in structural traps, and the South Kara Sea Offshore AU, which is considered to be an offshore geologic extension with similar traps and reservoirs.

The report said there are an estimated 3.659 billion bbl of undiscovered oil (1.152 billion bbl onshore and 2.507 billion bbl offshore), 651,499 bcf of natural gas (29,277 bcf onshore and 622,222 bcf offshore) and 20.329 billion bbl of natural gas liquids (850 million bbl onshore and 19,479 million bbl offshore) in the evaluated area.

The higher offshore gas estimate reflects the fact that the area has not been explored as extensively as the onshore area, USGS said.

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