The Teak oil field is located 25 mi (40 km) off the southeastern coast of Trinidad in the eastern part of the Venezuela Tertiary basin. The Teak feature, discovered in 1969 by seismic survey, is a broad asymmetrical anticline along a compressional fold belt between the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates. It is broken by many transverse antithetic and synthetic normal faults which divide the producing reservoirs into many separate pools. Production is presently from a depth range of 4,000 to 14,000 ft (1,219 to 4,267 m) subsea in seventeen "producing" sandstones of late Pliocene age ranging in thickness from 10 to 600 ft. The effectiveness of the faults as barriers to communication between fault blocks is demonstrated by variations in edgewater conditions, reserv ir pressures, and gas to oil ratios. Migration of oil into the Teak feature may be related to deep-seated fault conduits communicating with underlying Miocene or older shales.

Teak field production began in 1972, and the area is still being actively explored and developed. A total of 51 productive wells have been drilled from 5 platforms with an additional 4 wells recently drilled for water injection purposes. As of January 1, 1979, the field had produced 101 million bbl oil and 107 Bcf gas.