--> An Upper Cretaceous Petroleum System from Offshore Cameroon, by Ritchie Wayland, Dorene B. West, Xijin Liu, Heather M. Perfetta, and Paul F. Ostendorf; #90037 (2005)

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An Upper Cretaceous Petroleum System from Offshore Cameroon

Ritchie Wayland, Dorene B. West, Xijin Liu, Heather M. Perfetta, and Paul F. Ostendorf
ConocoPhillips, Houston, TX

The Douala Basin, Cameroon contains an Upper Cretaceous petroleum system formed in a deepwater setting. Although not all aspects of the system have been unambiguously defined enough data has been gathered and inferred for a model of exploration potential to be developed.

The early passive margin sequence of the area north of the Kribi Fracture zone likely formed over oceanic rather than rifted continental crust. As a result source rock facies are expected to be different from those described to the south in Equatorial Guinea. Deepwater reservoir sands were locally derived from the uplifted rift margin and emplaced within a relatively rapidly subsiding basin during Campanian and Maastrictian times. Finally, hemipelagic sediments of latest Cretaceous through Eocene age sealed the system.

Initial rapid burial during the Late Cretaceous was replaced by slower subsidence rates during the Tertiary. Basin development was punctuated by several major tectonic events and in the Neogene rapid basinward progradation of shelf and slope facies largely infilled the Cretaceous deepwater basin.

Hydrocarbon generation from the Pre-Tertiary sequence is difficult to model accurately but data from seep and recovered reservoir fluid indicates an active generative system.