Potential Unconventional Oil and Gas Resource Accumulations, Onshore Thailand

This reference is for an abstract only. A full paper was not submitted for this conference. The U.S. Geological Survey has assessed undiscovered, technically recoverable shale gas, shale oil, tight gas, and coalbed gas resources in more than 140 unconventional hydrocarbon accumulations in the United States. The geologic and engineering attributes of these U.S. unconventional plays are used in the present study as geologic analogs to define potential resource plays in onshore Thailand basins. Tight gas and shale gas accumulations might exist in Triassic sandstones and mudstones of the Khorat Plateau Province, and shale oil and possibly shale gas might occur in the extensional structures in the Thai Cenozoic Basins Province. Coalbed gas does not appear to be a viable resource in northern Thailand at present. Introduction A goal of the Energy Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is to assess the potential for undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources in both conventional and unconventional accumulations in the United States and in priority basins worldwide. As part of this process, the undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources in Thailand were assessed recently (Schenk and others, 2010). This report summarizes the geologic definition of potential unconventional oil and gas resources in two onshore geologic provinces in Thailand—Khorat Plateau Province and Thai Cenozoic Basins Province (fig. 1). Unconventional resources are identified for onshore rather than offshore areas given the marginal economics associated with many of these oil and gas accumulations.