Print this pageThe Jeanne d'Arc Basin, Offshore Newfoundland: A Geological Overview of Canada's Preeminent Hydrocarbon Basin for the Next Decade
HEWITT, MARTIN D. and JOHN R. HOGG,
The Jeanne d'Arc Basin is the largest rift basin in the Grand Banks region, containing in excess of 20 km of syn-rift sediment. Major oil reservoirs are found within Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous sandstones, with a calculated recoverable basin endowment of approximately 5 billion barrels. The total discovered basin resource is 1.6 billion barrels with 1.4 billion barrels in the four largest oilfields. Approximately 70% of the total basin resource is remaining to be discovered.
The Jeanne d'Arc Basin will mark an historic milestone in 1997 with first production from the 600 million barrel plus Hibernia oilfield situated in 80 m of water, 315 km southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland. Peak plateau production will be 135,000 bpd from the Hibernia and Avalon Formations with an expected field life of greater than 15 years. Subsequent to Hibernia are developments at Terra Nova, in 2001, followed by either Whiterose or Hebron.
Exploration interest has increased markedly in the Basin in the past two years, with impending Hibernia production, and is expected to grow as additional fields come on-stream. Major exploration trends are comprised of fault-bounded structural traps that incorporate a stratigraphic component. The major basin structures resulted from the last phase of rifting during the Late Barrernian to Aptian. The type II, Kimmeridgian-aged source rocks of the Rankin Formation had peak oil generation in the Mid-Eocene which resulted in favorable conditions for emplacement of hydrocarbons in pre-existing structural/stratigraphic traps.