Indus Offshore Petroleum Basin: Poorly Understood and Underexplored Geological Plays

Key geological risk elements for the petroleum plays and traps (potentiall accumulations) in Indus Offshore are rich source kitchen, charging of the reservoir and preservation of hydrocarbons in the traps. The petroleum system modeling work carried out in 2004-2005, as summarized below, was an attempt for the first time to postulate, model and document the existence of a petroleum system within a sequence stratigraphic and paleogeographic framework while engaging R&D colleagues and university students. Title of paper:

PALEOCENE PETROLEUM SYSTEM AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR EXPLORATION IN THE SOUTHWEST LOWER INDUS BASIN AND NEARBY OFFSHORE OF PAKISTAN, 2005. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327791092_PALEOCENE_PETROLEUM_SYSTEM_AND_ITS_SIGNIFICANCE_FOR_EXPLORATION_IN_THE_SOUTHWEST_LOWER_INDUS_BASIN_AND_NEARBY_OFFSHORE_OF_PAKISTAN

For this research piece, I engaged a geochemistry expert, Dr. Abrar Ahmad, from HDIP to study the extension and organic richness and maturity of the coaliferous Paleocene strata into the Offshore Indus Basin. Summarizing our findings in the paper: Paleo-oceanographic setting suggests that the west directed global currents and geostrophic flow on the western margin of the Indian craton actively transported organic matter westward adding to the productivity on the adjacent marine shelves (Fig. 3). In this perspective, deposition of a geographically widespread marine source rock is inferred in the western part of the study area and is supported by the sedimentologic characteristics of the Ranikot- 3, -4 and SMST...   A synthetic well modeled near Eocene carbonate shelf margin show main oil generation phase in Middle Oligocene. The section was pushed into the gas window in Early Miocene. The source kitchen lying between this shelf margin and deepwater Indus Offshore isolated carbonate platforms is the extending part of the same Paleocene petroleum system. 

One carbonate build-up, away from this hypothesized kitchen, was found to be devoid of hydrocarbons while the next one is about to be drilled in Q1, 2019. For work on deepwater isolated Carbonate Platform, co-authored by #Nadeem Ahmad, Ph.D., refer to:

  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317691237_Growth_and_demise_of_a_Paleogene_isolated_carbonate_platform_of_the_Offshore_Indus_Basin_Pakistan_effects_of_regional_and_local_controlling_factors

Growth and demise of a Paleogene isolated carbonate platform of the Offshore Indus Basin, Pakistan: effects of regional and local controlling factors, June 2017, International Journal of Earth Sciences.

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#geology #petroleum