An Update of Hydrocarbon Potential of Cuban Exclusive Economic Zone in the Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

Abstract

he Cuban Exclusive Economic Zone in the Gulf of Mexico (CEEZ-GoM) is a marine sector of more than 100,000 Km2 which belong to the homonymous hydrocarbon producer mega basin, and comprises oil fields in United States, Mexico and Cuba. The Cuban area was opened to foreign investment in 2000 year, from this time many production sharing contracts started to be subscribed with oil and gas companies of many countries. Many exploration jobs were conducted in the CEEZ-GoM since then, being the most important regional 2D seismic acquisitions and local 3D acquisitions, and also exploration wells drilled in 2004 and 2012. This first drilling campaign was focused in Late Cretaceous exploratory targets, looking for certain analogies with Mexican oil fields in the Southeast GoM. These wells did not discover any oil field; however, oil shows were recorded in many of them. Further geochemical analysis of these oils showed a fair correlation which those produced in the Cuban thrust belt, being the Upper Jurassic the source rock for both scenarios.

The goal of the present paper is re-evaluating the hydrocarbon potential of CEEZ-GoM, from new data supplied by new exploration wells, new seismic information available in the area and the new oil discoveries announced in the regional basin of the GoM. All the available data were integrated: stratigraphic, geochemical and basin analysis, seismic, well data, petrophysics, petroleum systems and regional correlations. The main results are the establishment of a new seismic-stratigraphic framework, the improvement of seismic calibration for better and more effective regional interpretations, characterization of new crude samples and source rocks in the area, thermal maturity estimation for these levels of source rocks, the proposal of new exploration plays, leads and prospect mapping, and the estimation of hydrocarbon volume in the basin.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90260 © 2016 AAPG/SEG International Conference & Exhibition, Cancun, Mexico, September 6-9, 2016