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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
AAPG Special Volumes
Abstract
2003. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
Regional Hydrocarbon Systems of Colombia and Western Venezuela: Their Origin, Potential, and Exploration
Tomas Villamil
ECOPETROL, Bogot
, Colombia; Present affiliation: Lukoil Overseas, Bogot, Colombia.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Luis Eduardo Pe
a, Edgar Kairuz, Vickye Velez, Gonzalo Lopez, Luis Ernesto Rojas, Victor Ramirez, Mart
n Morales, Fabio Cordoba, John Jairo Aristizabal, and the rest of the exploration staff at ECOPETROL who contributed ideas and cross sections of the plays along the Eastern Cordillera foothills and offshore Caribbean. The ideas presented in this paper have developed through interaction with many people; I would like to thank each and every one of my colleagues who discussed regional petroleum geology aspects of northern South America and positively criticized the syntheses I have presented. This paper summarizes a conference presented at the Houston Geological Society; it is the academic version of a paper for the general public in the book El Petroleo en Colombia, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of ECOPETROL. Drs. Alberto Calder
n, president of Ecopetrol, and Vctor Eduardo P
rez, senior vice president of Exploration and Production, have provided logistical support for the publication of this paper; I would like to sincerely thank them. I would like to thank Camila Villamil and Claudia Arango for their patience and support. Jonathan Green and Carlos Dengo carefully reviewed this manuscript and provided very helpful criticism and insight; my sincere thanks to them.
ABSTRACT
This paper synthesizes technical, commercial, and strategic issues regarding the petroleum systems and exploration of the northwest corner of South America in three parts: a technical analysis of the presence and distribution of the hydrocarbon systems; analysis of the areas with the largest remaining potential; and Colombia's exploration strategy in relation to its geology and potential.
The technical portion outlines, with the use of countrywide paleogeographic maps, the main reasons for the presence and distribution of hydrocarbons in the region. Regional petroleum systems are described using a process and genesis methodology. The proposed hypothesis for source-rock quality and distribution combines regional plate tectonics with the formation of a large igneous province, global warming, increased upwelling, widespread anoxia-dysoxia, and sea-level rise. The hypothesis for reservoir distribution and quality comprises details of a regional orogenic event that affected the northwest margin of South America. The distribution of different reservoir qualities is determined by the erosion of an elongated mountain belt formed by this orogeny, the associated synorogenic sedimentation, and the evolution of a closing foreland basin that received sediments from the west from a mountain chain with varied basement stratigraphy, and from the east, sediments from the Guyana Shield. The explanation for regional seal deposition lies in the tectonic extension and foundering of large portions of Colombia and western Venezuela, the regional subsidence associated with diminished plate-tectonic convergence, and the associated increase of accommodation space. The inversion of the Eastern Cordillera and the development of doubly verging thrust belts bounding the mountain belt explain the formation of most traps. Adjacent forelands and foredeeps to the mountain belt and thick molasse packages combined with tectonic burial of the source rock explain generation and migration patterns. This paper also considers where the largest volumes of hydrocarbons will be found in the future, based on technical issues, and on the exploration history of different play areas in Colombia.
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