Introduction to the special issue of Marine and Petroleum Geology: Tectonics,basinal framework, and petroleum systems of eastern Venezuela, the Leeward Antilles, Trinidad and Tobago, and offshore areas

摘要

The southern margin of the Caribbean and northern margin of South America contains one of the world's densest concentrations of giant oil and gas fields with a total of 41 oil and gas giants by the end of 2009. Each giant is defined as a field for which the estimate of ultimately recoverable hydrocarbons is greater than 500 million barrels of oil or 3 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of recoverable gas (Halbouty, 2001). Most of these supergiant basins are found within the onland areas of Venezuela with 28 giants (proved conventional reserves of 78 billion barrels (BBO) of oil and 146 TCF of gas and with 4 giants in the onland and shelfal areas of Trinidad and Tobago (proved reserves of 1.9 BBO and 26 TCF) (Mann et al, 2004) (Fig. 1A). Interestingly, the offshore area of this oil-rich region with the exception of the eastern offshore area of Trinidad and Tobago does not come close to the immense reserves of the onshore basins and reflects either a more hydrocarbon-poor offshore area or underexploration (Fig. 1A). Both these possibilities are discussed in the various papers in this special issue.