Comparison between Gulf of Mexico and Mediterranean Offshore Reservoirs

Deepwater oil and gas are simply conventional reserves in an unconventional setting. They consist of a resource class of their own largely because they face a common set of challenges in the course of their identification, characterization, development and production. However, there have already been successful deepwater reservoir developments, in sedimentary environments such as the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Brazil and West Africa. Especially in Gulf of Mexico, the offshore reservoirs are analyzed and exploited on a large scale, rendering a good case for deepwater exploration. Recently there have been large deepwater reservoirs discovered in the Mediterranean Basin. Except for the main reservoir type, the two regions? situations are similar to each other including large water depth, great production potential and significance in the role played in their regions? energy industry, respectively.

Before the exploration starts, the analysis and forecast of the reservoir properties and quality are always the priority. This research is to characterize these reservoirs in a way that will be useful for further exploration. A previous study of US reservoirs including both terrestrial and offshore Gulf of Mexico reservoirs showed correlations of depth vs pressure, temperature, and mobility. Similar works are done for the newly discovered reservoirs in Gulf of Mexico, and the same approach is applied to the analysis of Mediterranean reservoirs. Basically, the study showed important trends related to water depth that explains why deepwater reservoirs may offer exceptional potential over terrestrial and shallow water reservoirs. The research done in this thesis is based on the following aspects: (1) previous analysis for Gulf of Mexico, (2) the new reservoir data analysis for both Gulf of Mexico and Mediterranean, (3) evaluation and comparison of the two regions.

The deepwater reservoirs in two regions are similarly impacted by the water depth. Both reservoir pressure and porosity are altered higher by water. Also, some reservoir properties like permeability can be possibly inferred under specific condition. Based on the study, it is obvious that offshore reservoirs of the two regions have the potential for high deliverability and deserve exploration.