As deep-water exploration continues to gradually emerge from a relative lull in activity, the challenges to success remain as complex as ever. In the new reality of more limited exploration budgets and increased scrutiny, there is a greater requirement to extract maximum value from all available data spanning multiple disciplines and scales. Truly integrated approaches to exploration workflows represent one way of addressing this problem.

The recent relaxation and opening of Mexico to international exploration represents both challenge and opportunity. The challenges to deep-water exploration stem from a wide variety of technical, economic and political risks. The opportunities are clearly large, with an enormous exploration footprint and large structures in an area with a proven and prolific petroleum system. Significant advances in imaging below salt and shale have been a critical step that, when linked to the adoption of an integrated geoscience approach, have allowed us to address these problems. In addition to the geophysical challenges surrounding salt, shale provides an additional challenge. Deformation is extremely complex in the deep waters often displaying disharmonic shortening across stacked detachment levels of salt and shale. As we look to understand the continuity of prolific play fairways such as the Wilcox, Frio and Vicksburg, understanding the origin, timing and distribution of the deep-water fold-belts is essential.

Deep-water fold-belts are inherently related to base of the paleo-slope and/or bathymetry of the detachment surface. Using the latest seismic data, calibrated to the regional stratigraphic framework, these fold-belts have been mapped, allowing their timing and distribution to be known. Further interpretation and integration with potential field data show their origin to be closely related to the underlying rift structure. The adoption of this fully integrated approach has helped to illuminate their origin, timing and evolution. The results have direct implications for source rock development, preservation and maturity as well as all other elements of the petroleum system including reservoir.

Deep-water exploration in Mexico targets Tertiary siliciclastic deposits from a variety of hinterland sources around the periphery of the Gulf of Mexico. With only limited well penetrations in the offshore and much of the play fairway below salt, the wider geologic context becomes important for de-risking plays. Consideration of the entire depositional system is therefore important when de-risking reservoir presence and quality for exploration. An integrated approach to stratigraphic architecture, detailed depositional process evaluation and regional mapping all play an important role. The seismic data are invaluable in extending detailed reservoir and play level understanding away from the limited well control. This has enabled us to address the large scale depositional polarities that help to answer fundamental questions related to regional exploration potential in frontier parts of deep-water Mexico and also to propose some new ones. n