East African Reservoirs and Seals: Phase II, Kenya

Core Laboratories is pleased to announce a significant series of rock based, geological studies in East Africa, providing dataset generation and detailed evaluation of reservoir and seal rocks across the region. Phase I – Tanzania was completed in July 2009.Phase II– Kenya, is presented in this proposal for your consideration.

National Oil, Kenya will provide access to national archives of cuttings, Conventional cores, fluids, electric logs and technical geological well reports for study purposes. Approximately 20 wells will be selected for detailed analysis. All four major basins in Kenya (Anza Basin, Mandera Basin, Lamu Basin and the Western Kenya Rift Basins) will be included in the study.

The Lamu Embayment includes depocentres both onshore and offshore southeast Kenya. Potential reservoirs range in age from the Permian to the Tertiary. The northwest-southeast trending Anza Basin extends across much of eastern and northern Kenya. Reservoir targets include continental deposits of the Paleozoic-Mesozoic Karroo, Lower Jurassic carbonates and Cretaceous-Tertiary fluvial, deltaic and lacustrine sandstones. Only the western flank of the Mandera Basin extends into (northeastern) Kenya and is relatively unexplored. Potential reservoirs are likely to occur as either Jurassic carbonates or sandstones of the Karroo.

The primary objective is to undertake a full evaluation of reservoir quality of all major reservoir intervals that are penetrated in the study wells, integrated with an evaluation of associated seal rock lithologies, together with an evaluation of regional sources units and thermal maturity. All fluid occurrences will be characterized and correlated. The establishment of a regional sequence stratigraphic framework will also be a major component of the study.

The key components of the study are as follows:

  • Reservoir Description and Rock Properties Evaluation of all major reservoirs
  • Rock Typing of uncored sections
  • Seal Atlas of major seal lithologies
  • Regional Source Rock evaluation and thermal maturity
  • Fluid characterization and correlation
  • Biostratigraphy/Sequence Stratigraphy of key wells
  • Digital Database of laboratory and well data, including LAS files of the electric logs
  • HTML browser of the study dataset and report

The study is scheduled for an early 2011 completion.