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The Gulf of Mexico Basin has proved to be a highly successful hydrocarbon province, and the vast untapped volume of both oil and gas ensures that the basin will continue as a major player for decades to come.
With 12 recently announced deep-water discoveries and an aggressive leasing schedule for the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico, exploration and production technology is being pushed to its limits. See the seismic.
Reprocessing of several seismic data sets acquired offshore Norway in the 1980’s have
demonstrated significant improvements in both resolution and structural imaging.
Exploration interest in the deepwater US Gulf of Mexico is at an all time high following the discovery,
in 2001, of thick Paleogene submarine turbidite sands in the Baha #2 well. See the seismic.
Recent deep gas and deep-water discoveriesin the Gulf of Mexico are pushing explorationtechnology to the limit. In many ways, the future success will depend on the ability of the geophysicalindustry to address the
technicalchallenges offered by deeper and more obscured geologic targets.
Throughout the world, sub-salt imaging remains a major issue. Service and oil companies are striving to meet this challenge.
The first oil was extracted from the Gulf of Mexico back in 1938. Since then, 30 billion barrels of oil equivalent have been produced from the US Gulf, but the area is still thought to have huge remaining potential, particularly in the deep and ultra-deep waters.
Deep-water (>300m) oil production in the Gulf of Mexico began in 1979 with Shells Cognac field that was discovered in 1975, 30 years ago. Since then, deep-water exploration and production has grown with tremendous advances in technology.
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