Application of Sequence Stratigraphy to Oil and Gas Exploration in Bredasdorp Basin, Offshore South Africa

Nicolaas J. S. Van Wyk

For more than two decades, oil and gas exploration in offshore South African rift basins within structural synrift plays yielded limited success. After the first oil discovery in postrift sediments in the Bredasdorp basin in 1987, sequence-stratigraphic concepts were applied to the Lower Cretaceous postrift sequences to permit correlation of depositional systems tracts and related facies throughout the basin. Extensive high-resolution seismic coverage and borehole control supported the study. The interplay of diminishing rift tectonics, thermal cooling, and inferred eustatic variations in global sea level produced a distinctive series of repetitive cycle depositional sequences. As many as 10 cyclic sequences and megasequences, deposited between the mid-Valanginian and low r Santonian, can be recognized within resolution limits of regional seismic profiles. Various elements of lowstand systems tracts within these sequences appear to contain potential reservoirs. Highly erosional (type 1) unconformities, commonly exhibiting incised valleys and canyons, provide surfaces on which (1) mounded and sheetlike submarine/basin-floor fans, (2) submarine channel fill and associated mounds and fans, and (3) prograding deltaic/coastal lowstand wedges were deposited. These fans, channel fills, and wedges are top sealed and sourced by transgressive shales and marine condensed sections, deposited at a time of regional transgression of the shoreline.

One discovery well and various reservoir-quality sandstones occurring at predicted stratigraphic levels in other wells support the application of the sequence-stratigraphic concepts to hydrocarbon exploration.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91022©1989 AAPG Annual Convention, April 23-26, 1989, San Antonio, Texas.