ABSTRACT: Regional Summary of the Petroleum Producing Provinces and an Exploration-Production Matrix of Geologic and Nongeologic Factors

KANES, WILLIAM H., University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC

A brief review of exogenous and endogenous considerations that affected exploration and production in the Russian and allied republics suggests that the following four factors are dominant.

1. The reservoir history and related diagenetic changes with best deliverability from Paleozoic reefs followed by Tertiary and Mesozoic clastics.
2. Basinal position, which determines possibilities and quantity of total resource present in individual structures or compound structures.
3. Proximity to existing infrastructure as a determinant of the maturity of exploration.
4. Unique organizational structures and requirements; the effects of central planning on exploration and production.
The history of exploration and exploitation thus is impacted in part by nonmarket-driven, nonwestern-traditional considerations. Only when viewed from these perspectives does the development of the hydrocarbon exploration and production sector in the Russian and allied republics respond to rational analyses.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91012©1992 AAPG Annual Meeting, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 22-25, 1992 (2009)