Laptev Sea shelf: qualitative and quantitative assessment of hydrocarbon potential

Abstract

The paper presents the seismic and drilling exploration maturity of the Laptev Sea shelf and the northern part of the Siberian Platform, as well as the state of licensing. The authors highlight the main evolution stages of the Laptev Sea basin and discuss direct and indirect indicators of oil and gas occurrence in the context of petroleum potential assessment. They present distribution of nearby onshore oil pools and shows, and carried out the following studies: analysis of oil and gas source rocks occurrence in the neighbouring onshore areas; building the oil and gas source location map for the south-western part of the Laptev Sea shelf and the northern part of the Siberian Platform; investigation of possible methods for evaluation of the Laptev Sea shelf resource potential. The authors presents the comparison of estimates of the Laptev Sea shelf resource potential. As there are no new HC production data for the basin of Beaufort Sea and Mackenzie River and it is impossible to assess the resource density using the reference area, the authors substantiate and use the North Sea Petroleum Basin as an analogue. The joint analysis of the North Sea Petroleum Basin and the Laptev Sea basin allowed revealing a number of their common features, building typical cross-sections within the North Sea Petroleum Basin and the Laptev Sea, and resource potential estimation for the Laptev Sea using the North Sea Petroleum Basin as a reference. The authors present the criteria necessary to be accounted for in the future resource potential assessment within the Laptev Sea shelf.