Gulf of Mexico growth fault drilled, seen as oil, gas migration pathway

Abstract

The Global Basins Research Network (GBRN) is an electronic Internet organization that was formed to solve two very specific fluid-flow plumbing problems: (1) the identification of expulsion mechanisms by which hydrocarbons migrate up fault zones from deep, geopressured strata into shallower reservoirs, and (2) the imaging of these active hydrocarbon migration pathways so that wells can be drilled into these streams located within fault zones''. As part of a GBRN/Department of Energy/oil industry cost-sharing project, the authors are experimenting with methodologies by which hydrocarbons can be economically produced from these natural conduits into deeper, as yet unexploited reservoirs. This article reports on the Field Demonstration Experiments carried out in 1993 in the Pathfinder well, a 700 ft extension of the A-20 ST production well into the fault zone in Eugene Island Block 330. The integration of a wide variety of geophysical, geochemical, geological, and reservoir engineering technologies was used to image the hydrocarbon migration processes in Eugene Island 330 and to site the test well in Block 330 itself.