Pre-Tertiary Play types of the NW Pannonian Basin, Hungary

Compared to the rest of the Pannonian Basin system, the Hungarian part of the Danube Basin (Fig. 1) appears to be underexplored. Most of the hydrocarbon exploration efforts concentrated on the Tertiary basin fill and, typically, the well penetrations into the pre-Tertiary “basement” were only on the order of a few tens of meters. Whereas the presence of a pre-Tertiary Alpine thrust-fold belt beneath the Miocene to Recent basin fill has been suggested by several authors based on the interpretation of regional 2D reflection seismic data sets, unfortunately, the supposed overthrusts were never proven by drilling. A deliberate search for complex structural traps within the Alpine nappe system, however, provided several recent discoveries beneath the Tertiary basin fill of the nearby Vienna Basin (Fig. 1).