Integrated petroleum systems & play fairway analysis in a complex Palaeozoic basin: Ghadames – Illizi Basin, North Africa
Date: Thursday, 19th September 2013
This presentation will take place in the Royal Cambrian Academy headquarters in Crown Lane, Conwy at 6:30pm. Refreshments from 6:00pm.
Speaker Overview:
Dr Richard Dixon is a geologist with BP Exploration based in the London area where he is part of BP’s Exploration Assurance Team. Richard received his BSc & PhD from University College Cardiff. He then joined Robertson Research in 1985 as a sedimentologist working for them in North Wales & Aberdeen until 1988 when he joined BP. Richard spent 8 years working the North Sea & Faeroe – Shetland Basins mainly in development & appraisal roles, before moving to international exploration in 1996. For the last 17 years Richard has worked regional exploration projects across the globe, including the North Slope, North Africa, East Siberia, Sakhalin, Trinidad & Venezuela, India East Coast, West Africa (Angola & Gabon) & Brazil. For the last 3 years Richard has also been involved in teaching the Petroleum Geoscience MSc class at the University of Manchester and was appointed as visiting professor (Basin Analysis & Petroleum Geoscience Group) earlier this year.
Abstract:
The Ghadames–Illizi Basin is a highly productive petroleum province with a long exploration history in Algeria, Libya and Tunisia (from the late 1950s to present day). Ongoing exploration success in all three countries suggests that it will continue to provide attractive exploration targets in the future. The basin has a long and complex geological evolution characterized by multiple phases of subsidence punctuated by significant regional uplift events. Two ‘world-class’ petroleum source rocks of different geological age are present (Lower Silurian and Upper Devonian) with similar depositional environments and geochemical characters. Both source horizons have generated significant volumes of oil and gas. Petroleum migration is strongly influenced by the stratigraphic architecture of the basin fill, notably distribution of regional seals and the complex patterns of subcrop and onlap across regional unconformities. Multiple reservoir–seal combinations are presented by Late Ordovician glaciogenic sediments and younger Silurian through to Carboniferous paralic sequences. Integrating the stratigraphic relationships with the complex burial history of the basin (timing of uplift, degree of tilting, amount of section removed by erosion) is not a trivial task, but is key to exploration success in such a complex basin. With the aid of 3D basin reconstruction and fluid flow modelling software, we can attempt to capture the stratigraphic and structural complexity and make exploration predictions. If basin modelling techniques are to be optimally applied in such settings, a fully integrated and geologically realistic approach involving biostratigraphers, sedimentologists, structural geologists, geophysicists and geochemists is required. A modelling approach, workflow and some results will be presented.
This talk was presented in 2010 at the Barbican Conference. The paper is published – Petroleum Geology Conference series doi: 10.1144/0070735 Petroleum Geology Conference series 2010, v.7; p735-760 and available through the Lyell Collection.