Author: Carlos José Rodríguez Taborda (presenter), Technical Vice President, ANH Colombia
One of the main objectives of the Colombian National Hydrocarbon Agency (ANH) is the acquisition of information in the Caribbean offshore basins. During the last years the ANH has performed several projects in order to improve the knowledge of the unexplored sedimentary basins and the possibility to find important commercial quantities of hydrocarbons.
The Colombian Caribbean basins can be actually divided in three: the offshore Sinu (29, 471 km²), in the west part composed mainly of young Tertiary terrigenous rocks derived from the Magdalena river; the Offshore Guajira basin (56,392 km²) to the east which include older Tertiary and probably Cretaceous rocks highly affected by tectonics; the limit of the two basins is the major wrench Santa Marta-Bucaramanga faults system. The deepest part of the basin is called the Colombia Basin (130,369 km²) in deep and ultradeep waters. Multi structural and stratigraphic plays have been recognized in the three basins.
No more than 66 wells have been drilled in the basins which are basically unexplored: only one commercial field, Chuchupa-Ballenas in the offshore Guajira with original reserves in the order of 7.0 TCF. The northern part of South America is now considered a new oil province, considering the major latest discoveries in Guyana and Surinam (8.0 billion BO) and the La Perla gas field (17.0 TCF) in offshore Venezuela. Other discoveries in the Colombian basins like Orca-1, Kronos-1 and Purple Angel-1 will be tested soon.
The ANH is completing the acquisition of high resolution bathymetry that will cover 100% of the basins; the project will be ready by the end of the year, and the entire bathymetry will be integrated with regional gravimetry in order to recognize paleohighs with probably cretaceous rocks, which might trap thermogenic liquid hydrocarbons; campaigns of piston cores and heat flow are in process in order to help to understand the thermal maturity of the basins. A large multiclient seismic project is also in progress for reprocessing and acquisition of 2D seismic.
The ANH will continue with the acquisition of information in order to have the best information to attract investment for competitive bidding processes. A recent Yet to Find study for the three basins has shown possibilities for at least 7.60 BBO and about 30.0 TCFG recoverable.
Bio:
Carlos José Rodríguez Taborda, Technical Vice President, ANH Colombia
Carlos is a geologist from Universidad Nacional de Colombia and earned a MSc from the University of New Orleans.
With 40 years of experience in the industry, he currently is Technical Vice President at the National Hydrocarbon Agency of Colombia (ANH), where he is on charge of the improvement of the knowledge and acquisition of information for mature, emergent and frontier basins; of the evaluation of areas to be promoted by the ANH for bidding process, and leads the update of the land map.
He previously has held managerial positions at Interoil, Mansarovar and Mohave; business development for Ecopetrol; and senior geophysicist for Lasmo, Exxon and Texaco. Carlos is a member of AAPG and ACGGP.