The OETR Association (Offshore Energy Technical Research) has initiated an industry standard Play Fairway Analysis and Geoscience Data Package program. This program is intended to serve a pivotal role in stimulating industry interest in exploration of Nova Scotia’s offshore petroleum resources by providing explorers with critical information about prospectivity and resource potential to aid in decision making.

Key issues that will be addressed through the research program include:

• Showing that there is a route to reducing risk to acceptable levels;
• Developing a model that can be used to predict reservoir presence on the slope; and
• Understanding the source rock story.

Although exploration history shows that there is a proven petroleum system, exploration efforts to date have failed to unlock its potential. Each of the current proven plays has exploration risks that are unacceptable to the industry. The OETR Play Fairway Analysis and Geoscience Data Package program is designed to examine the hydrocarbon potential and to demonstrate reduced risk to the industry so that the exploration potential of the remaining hydrocarbon potential can be economically explored.

FIGURE 1: Exploration Licenses offshore NS

Past studies funded by various levels of government have recommended research to gain a better understanding of the barriers to exploration in Nova Scotia’s offshore, and to work toward reducing them. The Play Fairway Analysis and Geoscience Data Package Program is intended respond to these recommendations. The results of these past studies have increased the interest in taking action to investigate and explain the positive aspects of exploring offshore Nova Scotia, prompting the Government of Nova Scotia to commission the OETR Association to co-ordinate a number of subsequent geoscience studies. The studies are intended to fill research gaps and to better understand the current body of knowledge with regards to the geoscience of offshore Nova Scotia.  

As part of the Government of Nova Scotia’s commitment to reducing barriers for exploration in Nova Scotia’s offshore, the Province has invested over $15 million in the OETR Association to coordinate research activities to make this work possible. The results of the Play Fairway Analysis and the sample data to support the analysis will be available to explorers.

A Play Fairway is the present day area of a potential reservoir unit, with the possibility of having a complete working petroleum system. The Play Fairway Analysis examines relative risks and total volume potential and the four play components (reservoir, seal, charge, trap). It also provides prospect ranking across basins, identifies work program and data acquisition issues and helps in assignment of exploration budgets.

FIGURE 2: Play Fairway Concept (RPS Energy)

In April 2009, after an extensive Request for Proposals process, the OETR Association awarded an 18-month contract to RPS Energy for program management services to co-ordinate an industry standard Play Fairway Analysis project for offshore Nova Scotia. The objective of the project is to promote Nova Scotia’s hydrocarbon prospectivity to the oil and gas industry in order to attract maximum participation in forthcoming licensing rounds.

The creation of a data package to accompany this Play Fairway Analysis is an important component to the OETR program. Including this sample data  will enable interested companies to test the proposed hydrocarbon models on real data and to do an initial evaluation of some prospects.

The Play Fairway Program was initiated in May with a workshop attended by leading academic thinkers from Canada, Europe and Morocco.  The workshop participants concluded that three important issues needed to be addressed as part of the overall play fairway program:

1.    Plate tectonic reconstruction
2.    Forensic geochemistry – Source Rock Story
3.    Sequence stratigraphic framework

This work will show that the large undrilled features / structures that exist in the area could be hydrocarbon bearing and have substantial volumes.  An understanding of the associated issues will be gained through innovative thinking based on a rigorous systematic approach to understanding the petroleum system.

Program Components

As a result of the May workshop and conversations with the academic and geoscience community in Halifax, the Play Fairway Program has evolved into a number of proposed individual projects. These include:

• Plate Tectonics Modeling
• Biostratigraphy
• Geochemistry
• Petroleum Systems Modeling
• Seismic database preparation / Synthetics
• Reprocessing of seismic lines” of around 6,300km data
• Seismic Rock Physics Review
• Salt Structural Interpretation
• Reservoir Quality
• Play Fairway Evaluation

In addition, the OETR Association contracted GeoPro to use 100 Ocean Bottom Seismographs (OBS) to acquire SEG-Y data for a 400 km refraction line offshore eastern Nova Scotia. The results of this refraction line will feed directly into the Plate Tectonics component of the Play Fairway Program. The processing of this refraction data will allow the geoscience community to better understand the formation history of the basin, and to make more accurate assumptions concerning source rock distribution and to a lesser extent the reservoir distribution.

The proposed projects are designed to incorporate leading academic research being undertaken in Halifax into the overall Play Fairway Analysis.  Of particular note are the plate tectonic and salt modeling projects which build on work being done at Dalhousie University; and the biostratigraphy and reservoir quality projects which build on work being done at St Mary’s University.  All projects will build on the extensive high quality thinking and knowledge that exists in the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) and the CNSOPB.  

The Play Fairway Program integrates the results of these individual projects to develop an industry standard play fairway analysis and atlas. This will include the creation of Gross Depositional Environment (GDE), and Common Risk Segment (CRS) maps on each key sequence leading to the development of a final Yet to Find Analysis by play segment.

After releasing an Invitation for Expressions of Interest and interviewing several potential candidates, OETR has selected Beicip-Franlab of France to carry out the Play Fairway Analysis and contract negotiations are underway. Other special projects, such as Biostratigraphy are also underway. The Play Fairway Program is expected to be completed in Fall 2010 with the publication of a Play Fairway Analysis and sample Geoscience Data Package for use by explorers.  

Click here to download a the Play Fairway Analysis and Geoscience Data Package Program Fact Sheet.  This fact sheet contains more technical information about the project and research areas.