ABSTRACT: Sanaga Sud Field--Offshore Cameroon, West Africa
Robert J. Pauken
The Sanaga Sud field, offshore Cameroon, is located just northwest of the coastal town of Kribi in the northern part of the Douala basin. The discovery well, Sanaga Sud A-1, was drilled in 1979 to test an apparent horst block that contained a prominent horizontal seismic amplitude. The Douala basin is one of a series of passive margin basins located along the coastline of central and southern Africa, and formed during the rifting of Africa and South America during the Early Cretaceous.
Drilling results showed that the amplitude was a gas/water contact. Two appraisal wells, SSA-2 and SSA-3, were drilled in 1981. All three wells tested gas and condensate. Total recoverable hydrocarbons for the field are estimated to be approximately 1 tcf of gas.
The trap in this field is composed of tilted and rotated fault blocks composed of interbedded Aptian to Albian sandstones, siltstones, and shales. The fault blocks were truncated by erosion (breakup unconformity) and later buried by a considerable thickness of onlapping Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary shale. The late Albian erosional unconformity forms the top of the trap over most of the field. Geochemical studies indicate a Lower Cretaceous source for the hydrocarbons.
The gross pay thickness averages 250 m with an average porosity of 23% and an average permeability of 142 md. Reservoir lithologies range from well-sorted, massive sandstones to poorly sorted fine sandstones and siltstones containing shaly laminations that are carbonaceous and micaceous.
The field is located predominantly in Block PH-38, but part of the field is in the Londji concession. Mobil Producing Cameroon, Inc., is the operator of PH-38 and Total Exploration and Production Cameroon is the operator of the Londji concession.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91000©1990 AAPG Conference-Giant Oil and Gas Fields of the Decade 1978-1988 Conference, Stavanger, Norway, September 9-12, 1990