Hydrothermal Reservoirs - New Exploration Life for the Mississippian Carbonate Platform, the Dnieper-Donets Basin

Exploration for oil and gas in the Lower Carboniferous Carbonate Platform of Tournaisian - Early Visean age in the Dnieper-Donets basin (DDB) meets with particular problems caused by lack of detail knowledge about the spatial reservoir morphology and origin of the carbonate reservoirs. Application of the Trenton-Black River exploration play concept based on searching for structurally-controlled hydrothermal dolomite reservoirs (HTD) helps to solve the above task. Complex hydrocarbon prospects in the Tournaisian -Lower Visean carbonate platform combining biohermal/reefal bodies, fractured limestones (‘Mississippi lime’ type), clastic rocks of the erosional residuum at intra-Visean unconformity (‘Mississippi chat’ type), and structurally-controlled hydrothermal dolomites (‘Trenton – Black River’ type) are indentified in this study and create new promising exploration trend in the DDB. New strategy will shift exploration focus from anticline traps to tectonically disturbed peripheral areas and monocline slopes of local depressions in the margin zones of the DDB paleorift thus extending its exploration life.