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The history of oil exploration and development in the northern North Sea
Author(s) -
STEWART DAVID
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
geology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.188
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1365-2451
pISSN - 0266-6979
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2451.1988.tb00578.x
Subject(s) - geology , cretaceous , north sea , petroleum , oceanography , paleontology , fossil fuel , natural gas field , oil field , delta , petroleum geology , petroleum reservoir , natural gas , ecology , chemistry , aerospace engineering , engineering , biology , organic chemistry
Discovery of the southern North Sea gas fields and, by 1970, several billion‐barrel oil fields in the central North Sea encouraged oil companies to explore in the deeper, less hospitable waters of the northern North Sea. There, seismic surveys revealed a pre‐Cretaceous unconfmity with ‘highs’ forming potential oil traps. One of the largest of these buried ‘highs’ was drilled by ShelllEsso, and oil was found in quantity in Middle Jurassic deltaic sandstones. This led to the discovery of eight major oil fields with reserves in excess of 7500 million barrels. Detailed studies of the sandstone reservoirs of the Brent Delta are enabling petroleum geologists and engineers to maximize recovery from these northern fields.