Offshore Peru review reveals prospectivity in southern basins
Searcher Seismic has completed its Offshore Peru OpenSeis 2D and 3D seismic dataset.
This comprises 44,389 kilometres (27,582 miles) of 2D and 15,526 square kilometres (5,995 square miles) of 3D vintage seismic data along the Peru coastline, which has undergone post-stack reprocessing using the company’s proprietary OpenSeis method.
According to the company, Peru’s offshore offers potentially high impact, moderate-risk exploration in shallow water, with prospectivity in multiple, unexplored basins.
Searcher applied OpenSeis to the Peruvian database to rectify navigation, metadata, amplitude, phase and time, creating a contiguous database. This includes 19 rectified and merged 2D seismic surveys and 21 rectified and merged 3D seismic surveys.
The aim is to deliver an improved and consistent, regional grid covering the country’s offshore basins, tying as many wells, leads, and prospects as possible.
The data has also been loaded and hosted on the company’s multi-client platform, Saismic, to provide for consistent and instant online access.
According to Searcher, fields offshore and onshore along the north coast in the Tumbes-Progreso and Talara extensional basins produce more than 1.8 Bbbl of oil.
To the south are five additional offshore basins where there has been little or no exploration activity.
The four exploratory wells in the Trujillo and Salaverry basins have proven source, the company said, with Lobos-1 and Morsa North-1 encountering significant oil shows.
Hydrocarbon samples recovered from natural slicks on the sea surface are also said to demonstrate the existence of active petroleum systems.
Searcher’s reprocessed data has identified various large undrilled structures in a variety of trap types.
Over the Lima and Pisco basins, geological and geophysical studies on just under 50 samples collected for geochemical analysis suggest the Carboniferous Ambo Group could be one of the main source rocks, with Eocene and Oligocene sandstones providing proven reservoirs onshore.
To the south, no wells have been drilled to date in the Mollendo basin, a long narrow forearc region mostly on the continental slope.
But asphalt layers encountered onshore in Lower and Middle Jurassic formations suggest the presence of potential source rocks which may extend offshore.
Source: Offshore Magazine