5 th Conjugate Margins Conference Porto de Galinhas, Pernambuco, Brazil, 22 th – 25 th August 2017 Atlantic Margin of Ireland – Research and Exploration in an Emerging Petroleum Province Katie Hernon, Kara English, Michael Hanrahan, Clare Morgan (1) (1) Petroleum Affairs Division, Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Dublin, Ireland Abstract The North Atlantic Mesozoic rift basins are tectonically linked and share a common evolution related to the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean. Ireland and Newfoundland- Labrador are commonly accepted as conjugate margins and both contain substantial yet-to- find petroleum potential. Ireland has recently experienced a surge in activity with the issuing of 28 Licensing Options in the 2015 Atlantic Margin Licensing Round, which now brings the number of active exploration authorisations to its highest levels since offshore exploration began in the 1970’s. Ireland’s North Atlantic emerging petroleum province has had only limited exploration with 52 exploration and appraisal wells drilled to date. The highly competitive nature of the Licensing Round was partly due to the significant discoveries made in the conjugate Flemish Pass Basin (Bay du Nord and Harpoon) offshore Newfoundland, which has heightened speculation of similar geology in the Porcupine Basin in Ireland. Another key to the focused industry attention was the availability of new long offset seismic data acquired in regions previously without modern 2D data, further demonstrating the similarities between the margins. This government led acquisition programme has helped to illuminate the prospectivity of underexplored, and untested, portions of the Irish offshore. Ongoing conjugate margin research includes a major collaborative Transatlantic geochemical source rock study by Nalcor Energy and Ireland’s Petroleum Infrastructure Programme (PIP), which provides further insight on the tectonic evolution and hydrocarbon potential of the conjugate margins of Newfoundland- Labrador and Ireland. An additional Irish- focused initiative includes a new, updated stratigraphic framework for all Irish offshore basins. This new framework will assist with our understanding of the regions’ evolution, the correlation to neighbouring regions, and similarities with the conjugate margin in Canada.
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5th Conjugate Margins Conference Porto de Galinhas, Pernambuco, Brazil, 22th – 25th August 2017
Atlantic Margin of Ireland – Research
and Exploration in an Emerging
Petroleum Province
Katie Hernon, Kara English, Michael
Hanrahan, Clare Morgan (1)
(1) Petroleum Affairs Division, Department of
Communications, Climate Action and
Environment, Dublin, Ireland
Abstract
The North Atlantic Mesozoic rift basins are
tectonically linked and share a common
evolution related to the opening of the North
Atlantic Ocean. Ireland and Newfoundland-
Labrador are commonly accepted as conjugate
margins and both contain substantial yet-to-
find petroleum potential.
Ireland has recently experienced a surge in
activity with the issuing of 28 Licensing
Options in the 2015 Atlantic Margin Licensing
Round, which now brings the number of active
exploration authorisations to its highest levels
since offshore exploration began in the 1970’s.
Ireland’s North Atlantic emerging petroleum
province has had only limited exploration with
52 exploration and appraisal wells drilled to
date. The highly competitive nature of the
Licensing Round was partly due to the
significant discoveries made in the conjugate
Flemish Pass Basin (Bay du Nord and
Harpoon) offshore Newfoundland, which has
heightened speculation of similar geology in
the Porcupine Basin in Ireland. Another key to
the focused industry attention was the
availability of new long offset seismic data
acquired in regions previously without modern
2D data, further demonstrating the similarities
between the margins. This government led
acquisition programme has helped to
illuminate the prospectivity of underexplored,
and untested, portions of the Irish offshore.
Ongoing conjugate margin research includes a
major collaborative Transatlantic geochemical
source rock study by Nalcor Energy and
Ireland’s Petroleum Infrastructure Programme
(PIP), which provides further insight on the
tectonic evolution and hydrocarbon potential
of the conjugate margins of Newfoundland-
Labrador and Ireland. An additional Irish-
focused initiative includes a new, updated
stratigraphic framework for all Irish offshore
basins. This new framework will assist with
our understanding of the regions’ evolution,
the correlation to neighbouring regions, and
similarities with the conjugate margin in
Canada.
5th Conjugate Margins Conference Porto de Galinhas, Pernambuco, Brazil, 22th – 25th August 2017
Institute, Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil.
Abstract
The shallow water carbonate rocks lying above the Badejo Basement High have over 30 years of successful oil production. Well known in terms of stratigraphic arrangement and permo- porosity, these accumulations are problematic when the subject is its structural control. One relevant point regarding these accumulations is whether or not the paleorelief below these carbonate platform controlled the fragmentation and downslope gravity movements. In detail, the oil fields of Albian age at the Badejo High are above salt pillows and welds, overlying a buried basement step that, in map view, bends from N-S to NE-SW. Gravitational structures in the sedimentary sequences above the salt layer are mostly collinear with the paleorelief architecture of the basement beneath. Such alignment motivated the investigation of a possible passive influence of the substrate after cessation of the fragmentation and basinward gliding processes. Evidences
supporting this idea came from an integrated approach that included analysis of well logs, seismic interpretation, section restoration and generation of palinspastic maps. These techniques revealed a clear association of the buried basement step and the salt- related fault patterns. Two distinct post- salt fault arrangements were identified: one of NW-SE subparallel planar normal faults; and another with radial divergent map view, dominated by non-planar N-S to NNW-SSE listric faults, following with the buried bend of the basement high. The tracking of lateral movements through time deduced from the sequential restoration indicates that the apices of deformation occurred in the Eoalbian-Cenomanian and it was likely associated to the ESE tilting of the basin. The progressive deceleration of the basinward gliding, above the Badejo Basement High, started in the Late Cretaceous until its complete cessation in the Paleogene.