THE ROLE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN STUDYING PRE-CENOZOIC BASEMENT RESERVOIR IN OFFSHORE SOUTHERN VIETNAM

Mai Thanh Tan*, Nguyen Quoc Thap**

ABSTRACT

        The discovery of hydrocarbon in basement rocks has opened a new trend for oil and gas prospecting in Vietnam. The fractured and weathered basement rocks have been involved in forming effective hydrocarbon traps and are now important targets for oil and gas exploration in Vietnam. The highly fractured nature of oil-bearing granite basement reservoirs is the combined product of tectonic, cooling, hydrothermal and weathering processes.

        3D seismic, wire line logs, core, well testing (DST), production logs (PLT) and production data from fractured granite basement reservoir in the Continental shelf of Vietnam confirmed that the Pre- Cenozoic basement has complicated characteristics. There are many studies regarding the complicated nature of the basement. However, there are still key issues that are not well understood despite that different approaches have been used. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the characteristics of weathered-fractured granite basement and to overview all possibilities as well as limitations of applying new technologies to better understand this type of reservoir in Vietnam.