Abstract

The Mississippi Interior Salt Basin is the most productive sedimentary basin in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico region and ranks as an important petroleum basin in North America for oil and gas accumulations. Regional and local reservoirs in this basin have produced more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil and approximately 6.7 TCF of gas from 637 fields. Three major petroleum plays in and along the margins of the basin have been identified. These include the: (1) Mississippi Interior Salt Basin anticline play in the basin proper; (2) the regional peripheral fault trend play along the northern margin of the basin; and (3) the basement ridge play updip of the northern margin of the salt basin. The Mississippi Interior Salt Basin anticline play contains nine regional reservoirs, three local reservoirs, and two potential reservoirs. The most prospective stratigraphic sections for continued exploration are Lower Cretaceous sandstones and carbonates and Upper Cretaceous sandstones. The key to continued successful exploration in the basin will be delineation of petroleum traps associated with salt movement through advanced seismic imaging and recognition of favorable lithofacies through sequence stratigraphic analysis.