Lessons from History - Unlocking a New UK Shale Oil Play

The paper highlights how key results from historical exploration for conventional hydrocarbons, dating back over 70 years, led to the discovery of a new shale oil resource play in the UK. Early conventional exploration in the West Lancashire sub-basin, conducted by D’Arcy Exploration, a forerunner of BP, was focussed on areas of surface seepage, and resulted in the discovery of the shallow Formby oilfield in 1939. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a number of deeper wells were drilled, without success, targeting a proposed large Carboniferous conventional trap, leakage from which was thought to be source of the shallow accumulation. Exploration of the offshore East Irish Sea Basin, in the 1970s to 1990s, resulted in numerous oil & gas discoveries in Triassic reservoirs, sourced directly from Visean- to Namurian-age pro-delta shale source rocks (including the Brigantian- to Pendleian-age Bowland Shale Formation) precluding the requirement for secondary migration from Carboniferous traps. Regional studies highlighting poor poroperm preservation in Carboniferous clastic reservoirs led to the further downgrading of Carboniferous prospectivity. The recent identification of an unconventional shale gas play in the West Lancashire sub-basin by Cuadrilla Resources, within the Bowland Shale Formation, has led to a re-evaluation of the Formby area. New palynological and geochemical analyses of the early wells, presented in this paper, confirm the presence of a thick, prospective, Bowland Shale in the south of the West Lancashire sub-basin. Evidence that, locally, the Bowland Shale has generated liquid hydrocarbons is proven by the presence of the Formby shallow oilfield and the numerous oil seeps and relict hydrocarbon columns in the area; opening up a new shale oil resource play. The cumulative results from decades of exploration has revealed the true, unconventional, nature of the Carboniferous “mother lode” sought initially by D’Arcy, thereby heralding a new chapter in the hydrocarbon exploration of the basin.