Russian Western Arctic Basins and their Hydrocarbon Prospectivity

Antonina Stoupakova

The Russian Western Arctic Basins cover the huge area including the Barents, Kara, Laptev seas and adjacent territories with some archipelagoes and islands (Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land, Severnaya Zemlya, Novaya Zemlya and etc.). Exploration of the Russian West Arctic shelf has been conducted for many years. In the 1978 government of the USSR appointed Ministry of gas to develop the Arctic shelf with focusing on the exploration in the Barents and Kara Seas. During the decade (1980 to 1990) intensive exploration studies resulted in several discoveries in the Russian Barents sea. In 1980 – 1994 in the course of geological and geophysical surveys in the Barents, Pechora and Kara Seas Russian survey companies, , processed over 300,000 km of seismic profiles, conducted gravity and magnetic maps, revealed 101 prospective areas and discovered 10 oil and gas fields. Since that time 61 wells have been drilled in the Barents and Kara Seas. Most of the wells discovered hydrocarbons. Besides exploration wells several parametric wells have been drilled to evaluate stratigraphy, structures and connection between onshore and offshore areas of the Barents Sea. The drilling parametric wells in the archipelagoes of Frantz Josef Land, Svalbard and onshore Pechora Sea gave some ideas on hydrocarbon prospectivety of the whole area. In the early eighties the first wells were drilled in the mouth of the Pechora Sea. Within the whole Russian Arctic basins the following main tectonic elements can be identified: extensional sag depressions with sedimentary thickness more than 12- 14 km; platform massives with average thickness of sediments of 4 – 6 km, monoclines and tectonic steps, like transition zones between extensional depressions and platform massives. Western Arctic basins are filled by mainly Palaeozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary successions. In the sedimentary cover of this large region, many common stratigraphic complexes and unconformities can be traced within Palaeozoic and Mesozoic complexes that show similarity of geological conditions of their formation. There are several events, which influenced on the hydrocarbon prospectivity of the area. There are Palaeozoic rifting with the following extension and inversion in the Barnets, Kara and Yenisey-Khatanga basins, several stages of folding in Permian, Late Triassic- Early Creatceous in Novaya Zemlya and Taimir, general marine transgression in Upper Devonain Frasnian and Late Jurassic and regional unconformities and uplifts in Lower Palaeozoic, Carboniferous, Late Permian, Late Triassic and Cretaceous times. All these events are correlative in the Western Arctic basins and they lead to forming the regional source rocks, reservoirs and hydrocarbon accumulations in the whole area.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90177©3P Arctic, Polar Petroleum Potential Conference & Exhibition, Stavanger, Norway, October 15-18, 2013