New Play Concepts in the Onshore Majunga Basin, Madagascar

Banks, Nigel¹, Paul Jennings¹ (1) Wilton Petroleum Ltd, London, United Kingdom

Historically, oil explorers have been drawn to Madagascar by the tangible evidence of hydrocarbon generation and migration provided by the Bemolanga tar sands located in the northern part of the onshore Morondava Basin. However, despite ongoing exploration since the 1960s no significant discoveries of either light oil or gas have yet been made in any of Madagascar's sedimentary basins, either onshore or offshore. Because of the tar sands, onshore exploration has focussed on the Morondava Basin in the southwest of the country but more recent ideas suggest that the Majunga Basin in the northwest may be more prospective.

Since the last phase of serious exploration in the onshore Majunga Basin in the early 1990s various review papers have highlighted the potential of both the failed Karroo rift basin and the more westerly passive margin basin that was initiated in the early Jurassic. Following a recent comprehensive re-interpretation of all existing geophysical, well and outcrop data new play concepts have emerged that draw on proven petroleum system models from elsewhere in Africa and beyond. These plays and the associated prospects are entirely untested by previous wells.