Global E&P Ventures: Horizon of Petroleum Systems

Sanjiv Nath
Sr.Vice President, OVL, INDIA [email protected]

Oil and Gas plays one of the most important roles in fueling the energy requirement of mankind. As humanity has evolved it has looked for comforts through innovations, inventions and discoveries and has created artificial environments catering to its natural needs. The better has been the energy inflow the more have the nations grown. Hydrocarbon, being the most portable source of energy, has been the prime driver of the developed economy.

Today as India strives to catch up with the developed nations it is faced with a daunting challenge of fueling its economic growth, which has been growing at a rapid pace of 8 to 9% for the last few years and expected to continue for more years to come. This challenge has been compounded with limited endowment of hydrocarbon resource in our sedimentary basins thus focusing supplement through alternative source of energy and equity oil from abroad.

OVL today has become India’s flag ship company for global ventures for the much required supplement through equity oil. Today it has established its presence in 18 countries with many more in its focus. Each venture is unique and opens up distinct G&G horizons coupled with different fiscal, contractual and legal regimes.

The G&G horizons add to our learning curve through exposure to new basins, very different from the better understood Indian basins. Intra-cratonic basins, syn rift lacustrine basins, basins associated with non collision orogeny, plate boundaries etc. define a new horizon. The varied petroleum systems involving halo kinesis, shale diapirism, long distance lateral migrations, sub salt entrapments, basement reservoirs and many unique play styles serve as ingredients to the learning curve.

An attempt has been made to briefly introduce these G&G horizons by confining to Latin American basins with a focus on the areas of OVL’s presence. The basin evolution, petroleum systems, play styles and the envisaged potential have been illustrated to share the global dimensions of the efforts being made for the much needed equity from abroad.

Presentation GEO India Expo XXI, Noida, New Delhi, India 2008©AAPG Search and Discovery