The Relevance of the Exploration Data Integration and Risk Assessment

Juliano Magalhaes Macedo¹, Marcio Rocha Me1lo², Vladimir Oliveira Elias², Bjorn P. Wygrala³, and Robert G. Tscherny^3
1 Analytical Solutions S.A, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
² Analytical Solutions, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
³ IES Integrated Exploration Systems, Juelich, Germany

In essence, exploration works require the choice of targets to be drilled. This choice is based on the amount and quality of available data. The success of this choice is controlled by the presence/lack of relevant data and, how the generally sparse information is put together to form a coherent exploratory petroleum system model. This becomes extreme in frontier areas, where the less information you have more important they become. Therefore, assuming that a reliable geological integration of all data is achieved the management of critical exploration risks lies on the type and qualify the data. By "type" of information refer to, for example, specific geochemical parameters that allow insights into the degree of maturation, mixture, source type, etc, in order to provide useful calibration with compositional models, and “quality" refers to the degree of confidence of the actual data. Moreover, geological, geophysical and geochemical data derived from many sources have to be integrated in a consistent model in order to provide first order magnitude insights into petroleum systems. We provide examples that were performed in frontier areas of the Brazilian margin, and illustrate the importance of a reliable integration of exploration data and the good coupling between both "type" and "quality" of high resolution geochemical parameters, a reasonable knowledge of the geology of the region and the use of well calibrated compositional petroleum systems modeling. The use of reliable integrated database, assessment tools with the use of well calibrated petroleum systems models can represent the actual difference between exploratory success and failure, specially in frontier areas.