{"id":15381,"date":"2018-04-10T16:45:39","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T21:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/?p=15381"},"modified":"2018-04-11T17:00:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T22:00:57","slug":"mexicos-sureste-basin-returns-to-super-basin-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/mexicos-sureste-basin-returns-to-super-basin-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico\u2019s Sureste Basin Returns To Super Basin Spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

From: Hartenergy \/ 6 April<\/a><\/h3>\n

HOUSTON\u2014The flurry of bidding activity from oil and gas companies willing to shell out millions of dollars for drilling rights in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) during Mexico\u2019s latest bidding round showed there must still be something special about the Sureste (Southeast) Basin.<\/h3>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen a structure like it in my career,\u201d Mark Shann, subsurface director for Sierra Oil and Gas, said of Sureste during the AAPG\u2019s recent Global Super Basins Leadership conference.<\/h3>\n

The multiplay basin, which includes prolific sub-basins such as Sonda de Campeche and Chiapas-Tabasco, spans about 65,000 sq km and is believed to hold 50 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the GoM\u2019s shallow water and beyond. Its oil-prone prowess gained prominence in 1976 with Mexico\u2019s game-changing Cantarell oil field discovery. Since then the basin has served as the main hydrocarbon-bearing province for Mexico, which is working to reverse declining production with global players eagerly chomping at the bit in search of oil.<\/h3>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Southeast Basin Lures Oil Companies To Mexico\u2019s Shallow Water<\/a><\/strong><\/b><\/h3>\n

The historic Zama discovery made in 2017 by a Talos Energy-led consortium that includes Sierra and Premier Oil and another discovery\u2014Amoca\u2014by Italy\u2019s Eni in 2017 have kept the basin in the spotlight, indicating it still has more to give. The Zama well, the first well drilled by the private sector since Mexico opened its doors to foreign investors, hit 170 m to 200 m (558 ft to 656 ft) of net oil pay in Upper Miocene sandstones. Initial gross original oil in place estimates ranged from 1.4 billion barrels (Bbbl) to 2 Bbbl.<\/h3>\n

Some would call it the rebirth of a super basin.<\/h3>\n

Shann said the basin\u2014along with neighboring Tampico-Misantla\u2014has all the qualities of a super basin.<\/h3>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to go into a super basin, you need at least one fantastic source rock and it has to be a mature source rock,\u201d Shann said. He added that multiple reservoirs are also needed. \u201cHaving multiple reservoirs takes away the dependency of one reservoir working out or not, and you need seals to hold back hydrocarbons in their reservoirs.\u201d<\/h3>\n

Having a diversity of traps is fantastic, he added, noting other attributes also define a super basin. These include having a regulatory framework in which to make the entire business work and super data, something Shann said Sureste Basin has plenty.<\/h3>\n

\u201cFour years ago when we started our company we couldn\u2019t get all seismic data from the country. Today you can access all the seismic,\u201d Shann said. \u201cYou can access any well that is older than two years, and there are 39,000 wells in the country. The ability mine data and therefore to compete on an equal level playing field is hugely important,\u201d especially for a small company competing against supermajors.<\/h3>\n

Sierra has picked up 11,000 sq km of wide azimuth data from Schlumberger and source rock is visible, he said. \u201cThe super data has really helped to underpin a story of success in one of the world\u2019s greatest super basins.\u201d<\/h3>\n

Today Sierra is focused mainly on Sureste, which Shann said extends beyond shallow and into deepwater.<\/h3>\n

The company said on its website that Sureste\u2019s original oil and gas in place is about 220 Bboe, and the fact that it has numerous mature fields\u2014including Ku Maloob Zaap and Sihil\u2014and little reinvestment signals \u201csignificant opportunity for growth.\u201d<\/h3>\n

Its reservoirs are associated with structural, salt tectonics, stratigraphic and combined traps, and the main structural styles include normal faulting with rotated blocks (Late Miocene-Holocene), salt cored anticlines and salt rollers and diapirs (Jurassic-Late Cretaceous), according to Mexico\u2019s National Hydrocarbons Commission.<\/h3>\n

In terms of source rock potential, Shann said \u201cwe\u2019re definitely in a super basin.\u201d He spoke about how the Zama discovery shed more light on source rock thickness. Taking into account a conservative 50% migration loss among other factors, the company was able to determine the source rock must be about 200 m thick.<\/h3>\n

Shann said the company and its partners\u2019 plan to test the Jurassic next year.<\/h3>\n

\u201cSureste is one of those amazing salt-related basins,\u201d he added, speaking highly of the carbonate potential of the basin in Mexican waters and on the U.S. side. \u201cI think we can still find some big carbonate fields in the Campeche Slope.\u201d<\/h3>\n

Located about 37 miles offshore, Zama is between Eni\u2019s Amoca appraisal well in the Lower Pliocene and Pan American\u2019s Hokchi 2 in the Middle Miocene.<\/h3>\n

\u201cBetween the three of us, we\u2019re exploiting different parts of this basin, which helps the industry\u2019s understanding of the whole basin,\u201d Talos CEO Tim Duncan told Hart Energy\u2019s\u00a0Oil and Gas Investor<\/em>\u00a0last summer.<\/h3>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Talos Energy CEO Talks About Historic Zama Well<\/a><\/strong><\/b><\/h3>\n

Talos, which will merge with Stone Energy, said in its March 15 fourth-quarter earnings release that the company is in the appraisal planning stages for the Zama-1 discovery. Zama-1 is located in Block 7 of the Sureste Basin at a water depth of about 165 m.<\/h3>\n

Other exploration opportunities exist, according to Talos.<\/h3>\n

Talos holds a 35% participating interest with Sierra holding 40% and Premier, 25%.<\/h3>\n

From: Hartenergy \/ 6 April<\/a><\/h3>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From: Hartenergy \/ 6 April HOUSTON\u2014The flurry of bidding activity from oil and gas companies willing to shell out millions of dollars for drilling rights in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) during Mexico\u2019s latest bidding round showed there must still be something special about the Sureste (Southeast) Basin. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6907,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017,1475],"tags":[642,349,320,199,208,455],"class_list":["post-15381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-oil-gas","tag-crudo","tag-dolar","tag-hidrocarburos","tag-mexico","tag-oil","tag-petroleum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}