Abstract

In the past decade, many excellent giant oil discoveries have been made across the world in turbidite reservoirs in deepwater areas. Two deepwater conventional reservoirs clearly stand out as attracting focused exploration attention along the Atlantic Margin today. Lower Tertiary passive margin turbidite reservoirs (Wilcox) are being successfully explored on both the U.S. and Mexican deepwater areas of the Gulf of Mexico, both outboard of salt and in subsalt areas as well. The best quality reservoirs are characterized by outer fan distal basin floor sheet geometries. Cretaceous Ghana Jubilee abrupt margin wedge turbidites and their equivalents are being explored for in the deepwaters of Ghana, Liberia, and across the conjugate margin in French Guiana and equatorial Brazil. Both amalgamated basin floor fan sheets deposits (Jubilee Field) and channelized mid-fan deposits (TEN Field) characterize this play. This talk will briefly compare and contrast the tectonic and depositional history of these key deepwater reservoirs.