Geology and assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources of the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin Province

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessed the potential for undiscovered oil and gas resources of the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin Province as part of the USGS Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal. The province is situated between the Taimyr-Kara high (Kara block, Central Taimyr fold belt, and South Taimyr fold belt) and the Siberian craton. The two assessment units (AUs) defined for this study—the Khatanga Saddle AU and the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin AU were assessed for undiscovered, technically recoverable, conventional resources. The estimated mean volumes of undiscovered resources for the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin Province are ~5.6 billion barrels of crude oil, ~100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and ~2.7 billion barrels of natural-gas liquids, all north of the Arctic Circle. Yenisey-Khatanga Basin Province Province Boundary Definition The Yenisey-Khatanga Basin Province is situated between the Siberian craton to the south and the south slope of the Taimyr-Kara high to the north (figs. 1, 2). A northnorthwest-trending contractional-deformation zone called the Pakhsino-Begichev Arch, which is the westward extent of the Verkhoyansk-Olenek fold and thrust zone, forms the province’s east boundary (Mikulenko, 1983; Grebenyuk and others, 1988). The fold and thrust zone extends from the neighboring Lena-Anabar Basin to the south, northward through Bol’shoi Begichev Island in Khatanga Bay, to Cape Tsvetkov on the Taimyr Peninsula. The front of this fold and thrust zone extends westward to the Tigyano-Anabar horst (fig. 3), which might involve thrust faulting as part of its structural configuration (Drachev, 2002; G.F. Ulmishek, written commun., 2008). The Yenisey-Khatanga Basin is a northeastern structural arm of the West Siberian Basin (Baldin, 2004). Although the Mesozoic and Tertiary stratigraphic successions in the two basins have much in common, the basins are structurally separated by Mesozoic uplifts (Ulmishek, 2003). The Taimyr-Kara high, which bounds the northern margin of the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin, consists of the South and Central Taimyr fold belts in the south and the Kara block to the north (Ulmishek, 2003). The Yenisey-Khatanga Basin is a Mesozoic sag that formed above a late Permian and Early Triassic extensional-rift basin (Kontorovich and others, 1994). The Yenisey-Khatanga Basin is filled with 7 to 12 km of Mesozoic clastic rocks (Baldin and others, 1997). The Khatanga Saddle is a positive feature along the eastern margin of the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin. There, the Mesozoic section is thinnest (Grebenyuk and others, 1988), with a sedimentary thickness of no more than 1 to 2 km. Salt domes are present, in which the salt is presumed to be Devonian. A 2-km-thick sequence of Devonian and Carboniferous rocks is present in the northeastern part of the basin (Stepanenko, 1988). Petroleum Occurrence Petroleum was discovered in the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin Province in the early 1940s (1943–1945) in mainly Permian marine clastic rocks on the Khatanga Saddle. Because of poor reservoir quality (G.F. Ulmishek, written commun., 2006) and possibly extensive faulting (Danilkin, 1985), Mesozoic strata were considered noncommercial for petroleum, and exploration stopped in 1953. Exploration resumed in the western part of the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin Province in 1967, leading to the discovery of the Messoyakhskoye gas field and the North Soleninskoye gas-condensate field. Most of the discoveries were in Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks within anticlines. In 1979, the Deryabinskoye gas field was discovered in a nonanticlinal pinchout trap of Upper Jurassic and Berriasian sandstone. A total of 16 gas and gas-condensate fields and 4 oil fields had been discovered by 2008, most in the western part of the province. The gas fields in the western part of the province have been developed to supply natural gas to local industry in Noril’sk (fig. 2). Chapter R Geology and Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin Province, 2008 By Timothy R. Klett and Janet K. Pitman The 2008 Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal Edited by T.E. Moore and D.L. Gautier U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1824 2 he 2008 Crcum -Arctic Reource Apraisal Arctic Circle Arctic Circle West Siberian Basin Province Yenisey-Khatanga Basin Province Northwest Laptev Sea Shelf Province Laptev Sea Shelf Province Lena-Anabar Basin Province Tunguska Basin Province Yenisey-Khatanga Basin AU Khatanga Saddle AU 130° E 120° E 110° E 100° E 90° E 80° E 70° E 60° E