Exploration and Development of the Offshore Gulf of Mexico

GRACE, JOHN D., ARCO, Los Angeles, CA

Technology has driven exploration and development of oil and gas resources in the offshore Gulf of Mexico. Since drilling barges first probed open waters south of Louisiana, exploration has been governed by the water depth capacity of drilling equipment. In early wildcatting, extension of exploration concepts developed for south Louisiana Miocene trends governed the direction of offshore operations. Explorationists were initially drawn to deeper water by gravimetrically identified salt structures. As shallow-water salt targets were exhausted, improved marine seismic techniques located Miocene fault traps between salt-related discoveries. In the late 1950s and 1960s, Pliocene exploration was also initially motivated by salt targets, which stimulated advances in the water depth capacity of mobile drilling rigs and platforms. While salt targets in the Pleistocene provided important oil discoveries, most discovered Pleistocene hydrocarbons are gas, the largest volume of which was found through the introduction of "bright spot" technology at the end of the 1960s and very successfully applied in the 1970s. In the 1980s, further advances in drilling rigs and platforms provided access to water depths greater than 1000 ft, extending Pleistocene exploration to the flexure trend corresponding to the modern shelf-slope break and to even deeper water targets on the slope.

Major integrated oil and gas companies have dominated exploration and production in the offshore Gulf of Mexico. However, the composition of industry leadership has changed over the last 45 years as have the performances of companies within this group of active firms. Changes in exploratory and development success can be related to access to technology as well as exploration strategies.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91004 © 1991 AAPG Annual Convention Dallas, Texas, April 7-10, 1991 (2009)