1887
Volume 24 Number 4
  • ISSN: 0263-5046
  • E-ISSN: 1365-2397

Abstract

Jens Christian Olsen, TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company, explains how the application of ‘good old fashioned geophysics’ may ultimately reveal a world-class deepwater petroleum province offshore West Greenland. Until recently, interest in the petroleum prospectivity offshore West Greenland has been sporadic at best. No surprise then, that exploration off the country’s western coast dates back to a previous era of highpriced oil in the early 1970s. At that time, some 21,000 line km of non-exclusive 2D seismic data were acquired. The surveys provided enough promising geologic indicators to convince six groups of investors, led mainly by major integrated oil companies, to acquire another 16,000 line km of seismic data and to spud five wildcat wells. The spate of exploration in the 1970s was short-lived. All five wildcat wells were declared dry holes and plugged and abandoned. The petroleum industry quickly turned its search for new resources to supply an energy-hungry world to areas perceived to be more promising - and more climatically hospitable - below the Arctic Circle. It was left to the Geological Survey of Greenland, now the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), and Greenland’s state oil company, Nunaoil, to reconsider the early seismic and well-control data during the 1990s. They were encouraged in these endeavours by evidence that onshore oil seeps in the Disko-Nuussuaq-Svartenhuk area could be tied to Jurassic, Cretaceous, or Tertiary source rocks. An argument could be made that the region was home to an active petroleum system. Geophysical surveying offshore West Greenland by GEUS and Nunaoil during these years confirmed the presence of cross-cutting reflectors west of Nuuk in the Fylla area and a thick sedimentary geological section off West Greenland’s southern coast near Nuussuaq. Yet, beyond the work of these two state agencies, little new geophysical data were acquired, minimal response was generated by exploration licensing rounds, and exploratory drilling was almost non-existent. However, the sole onshore wildcat drilled onshore Nuussuaq on West Greenland provided a very positive indication that live hydrocarbons were present at least somewhere. When TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company (TGS) came to Greenland in 1999, only two areas offshore West Greenland were held by licences, and all offshore exploratory drilling wells in the region had been unsuccessful. The total seismic coverage amounted to only 60,000 line km of generally poor to extremely poor quality 2D data, including the 37,000 line km of data acquired in the 1970s. Even today, Greenland is still extremely under-explored, its prospectivity as a petroleum province virtually unknown to the world. Hopefully this may change as a result of work being carried out by a relatively small group including TGS, a handful of oil companies, and officials from GEUS, Nunaoil, and the Bureau of Mineral Resources and Petroleum (BMR). Relying initially on older geophysical data and well-control evidence, these organizations have been collaborating for the past six years on a regional study over a 126,000 km2 area offshore West Greenland. The emerging picture from this regional re-evaluation is a potential world-class petroleum province stretching from the Labrador Sea to the south, northward through the Davies Strait separating Greenland and Canada and into Baffin Bay.

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/content/journals/0.3997/1365-2397.24.1094.26924
2006-04-01
2024-03-28
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  • Article Type: Research Article
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