Pre-Caspian Investment Potential
The Pre-Caspian is a prolific oil & gas bearing region with over 40 billion barrels in oil equivalent of proven recoverable reserves and high upside potential. The Pre-Caspian area consists of the North and South Caspian Basin Provinces bordering Russia and Kazakhstan in the North (Figure 1) and bordering Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkmenistan in the South (Figure 3).
The upside potential offshore in the North and South Caspian areas and onshore North Caspian area to the east and northeast off Tengiz field (Kazakhstan) is underexplored.
South Caspian
The South Caspian Basin Province (province number 1112 of the U.S. Geological Survey’s World Energy Project) attains sedimentary strata thicknesses of as much as 20 km.
Naturally burning gas seeps in the South Pre-Caspian area led to the ancient name “Land of Fire,” which provided a center for Zoroastrian religious activity and warmth for travelers following the Silk Road. “Caspian Sea” is the English translation from the Azerbaijani “Hazar Deniz,” so named after an ancient regional tribe called the Hazarians. The first well in Azerbaijan was drilled in 1848 and to date some 105 fields have been discovered in the South Caspian Basin, of which 65 are in Azerbaijan, 35 in western Turkmenistan, and the remainder in Iran. Active exploration of Azerbaijan offshore areas began in the early 1950s, resulting in the discovery of several large oil and gas fields.
The oil & gas fields of the Western part of the South Caspian Basin attributed to Paleo - Kura fluvial depositional environment are currently in extensive exploration and development stage by major international companies. Many of the onshore and offshore fields of that area were already developed and produced and currently in their secondary recovery stages.
The exploration and development of the South Caspian Shelf offshore fields located in shallow waters of 3 to 200 meters depth is another opportunity of the nearest future. The offshore fields located in the Eastern part of the South Caspian Shelf are attributed to Paleo - Amudarya river depositions.
The North Caspian Basin Province (province number 1016 of the U.S. Geological Survey’s World Energy Project) is one of the deepest basins in the world, containing sedimentary strata more than 20 km thick. Despite almost 100 years of exploration history, the North Caspian basin remains an exploration frontier.
Oil and gas fields of the North Caspian Basin have been discovered in both subsalt (pre-Kungurian) and suprasalt sequences where all basin margins and subsalt rocks are productive.
In the subsalt sequence, large oil and gas reserves occur in Upper Devonian through Lower Permian carbonate and clastic reservoirs in structural traps and reefs particularly along the so called ‘carboniferous belt’ which is a shallow paleo-sea reefal buildup depositional environment for high quality reservoir rocks (Figure 2). The examples of major oil & gas fields located along this ‘carboniferous belt’ are such famous giant fields as onshore Tengiz and Karachaganak (Kazakhstan) and Orenburg and Astrakhan (Russia) and offshore Kashagan field (Kazakhstan).
In the Upper Permian to Tertiary suprasalt (post-salt) clastic sequence, there is oil and gas production over the entire area of the basin. Most hydrocarbon traps in this sequence are associated with salt domes and found in Jurassic and Cretaceous reservoirs.
North Caspian
The examples of major oil & gas fields located along this ‘carboniferous belt’ are such famous giant fields as onshore Tengiz and Karachaganak (Kazakhstan) and Orenburg and Astrakhan (Russia) and offshore Kashagan field (Kazakhstan).