ESTIMATES OF UNDISCOVERED OIL AND GAS IN PETROLEUM SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD: NORTH AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST EXAMPLES

摘要

The U.S. Geological Survey is conducting a new assessment of the technically recoverable undiscovered oil and gas resources of the world using petroleum systems. Digital geologic and province boundary maps for the world are in preparation and will be presented at the conference. The USGS has applied several different methodologies to the same set of data for the Neuquen Basin, Argentina (which includes 209 fields and 1041 wells) including the delphi approach using the 1994 USGS assessment by Masters and others, the fractal approach, the discovery process method including field growth and no growth models, and the superpopulation (PETRIMES) approach. Estimates of undiscovered oil and gas resources for this relatively mature basin are drastically different with undiscovered percentages ranging from 6% to 70% and undiscovered petroleum resources ranging from 125 to 3750 mm~3. Estimates for the various methodologies are presented.