Petroleum System of Bengal

Basin
Bengal Basin
 Facts
• Underlain by Precambrian shield and
Gondowana sediments
• Largest delta basin 23,000 sq miles
• Himalayas and the mountains and hills to the
north, east, and west; 1 Billion tons/ year
• underexplored region of 207,000 sq km; 52
exploratory wells; a success rate of more than
30%
 Facts
• Two major rivers: Ganga and Brahmaputra
• Developed largely over a remnantocean basin and
rifted eastern continental margin of India.
• Petroleum systems analysis of Basin area (Greater
Bakhrabad) and Shelf area (Madarganj-Sariakandi)
areas revealed hydrocarbon generation, expulsion and
migration properties that are very encouraging in
respect of prospect generation, prospect evaluation
and hydrocarbon potential of the Bengal basin and
may lead to new discoveries in future.
 Facts
• Prolific hydrocarbon accumulations in eastern
part of Bangladesh indicates the presence of
active petroleum systems in the Bengal basin.
• Several analysis revealed the presence of type
I, II, and III kerogens and three different active
petroleum systems in the Bengal basin.
though Type III is most common, Type II is
less common and Type I is rare
 Petroleum Geology of
Bengal Basin
Oligocene, Eocene Source Rock
carbonecous
marine shales
Miocene
sandstones, Reservoir Rock
Siltstone of Surma,
Tipam group
(Bokabil, Bhuban)
 Petroleum Geology of
Bengal Basin
• Porosity 10-20 %
• Intraformational shales and Claystones of the
Surma group are common seal for the gas field
of Bangladesh.
• Kopili Shale – regional seal over the shelf-slope
areas
• Anticlines are the common type of traps for the
accumulations of both oil and gas in Bangladesh.
 Evolution of Bengal basin
• The basin is the result of the subduction of the
IndianPlate below the Eurasian and the Burmese
Plates.
• The Bengal Basin has developed largely over a
remnantocean basin and rifted eastern continental
margin of India.
• The Bengal Basin is a foreland basin containing
asuccession of dominantly deltaic sediments derived
primarily from the erosion of the Himalaya andIndo-
Burmese ranges.
 Evolution of Bengal basin
• The Bengal Basin evolved in isolated graben-
controlled basins on the basement at the time
of thebreak-up of Gondwana land. The precise
tectonic framework and depositional history
of this ‘enigmatic’ sedimentary basin that cuts
across the political boundary of India and
Bangladesh in the eastern part of the Indian
subcontinent.
 Extent of Bengal Basin
• The southeastern boundary of the Bengal
Basin coincides with the eastern margin of
the Chittagong–Tripura Fold Belt(CTFB)
• The Syhlet Trough (also known as the Surma
Trough/Basin)which occurs north of the CTFB
is an active subsiding basin accommodating.
Basin Geometry, Tectonic setting &
Lithostratigraphy
Northern Sub Basin
 Northern Sub Basin
• Lies between the ‘saddle’ of the Garo–
Rajmahal Gap in the south and the
Himalayan Front
• varies between 128 and 1160 m
 Western Sub Basin
• The westernmost part of the Bengal Basin
shows the occurrence of laterite and lateritic
soils, the protoliths of which include
ferruginous sandstone, redshale, grit and
gravel beds containing dicotyledonous fossil
wood.
 South Eastern Sub Basin
• Constrained between Eocene shelf-break in
the west and the easternmost margin of the
CTFB
• The Southeastern Sub-basin shows a huge
sediment thickness ranging between 10 and
18 km
Source Rock of Bengal basin
• Most of the gas was generated in the organic
richshale of Oligocene age, stratigraphically
belonging to the Jenum Formation of the
Barail Group
• Organic matter is Jenum shale is mostly type
III with minor type II of terrestrial origin
Source Rock of Bengal Basin
• Organic matter is predominantly terrestrial
humic type, mostly type III with minor type II,
Generally, the humic type organic matter (type
III) has potential of generating enough
hydrocarbon gas but not enough oil.
• For this reason, most of the hydrocarbon
found in the Bengal basin is gas rather than oil.
 TRAP & SEAL
• Trap refers to a kind of framework or pattern
of the rock layers which bar gas from further
migration and within which therefore the gas
is accumulated.
• The gas fields of Bangladesh are housed in
structural traps i.e folded anticlines
• In all the cases shale layers above the
sandstone reservoirs form the seal
 TRAP & SEAL
• Gas field in stratigraphic trap has not yet been
found in Bangladesh
• the deltaic growth of the Bangle Basin has given
ample scope of formation stratigraphic traps
• Two of the late exploratory wells (Kapna – I and
Ratna – I) targeted at such stratigraphic sand
traps have failed to make any commercial gas
discovery
 Reservoir Rock
• Reservoir is the rock into which the gas is
accumulated.
• Any rock that has reasonable porosity and
permeability can be a reservoir rock
• Sandstone and Limestone are the two most common
petroleum reservoir throughout the world.
• The reservoir rock of all gas fields in Bangladesh is
sandstone. The sandstone belong to the Surma Group
unit ( Bhuban and Bokabil Formation) of Mioccene-
Pliocene age.
 Reservoir Rock
• The sand reservoirs of gasfields occur at depth
from less than 1000m to more than 3000m
• fine to medium grained
• well sorted clean sand with little clay
• delatic and swallow to marginal marine in
origin
• Porosity : 15% - 20%
• Permeability: 100-400 milidercy
 Timing of Gas Migration &
Accumulation
• The history of trap formation and gas migration from
source to reservoir-trap is one of a very young
geological episode in Bangladesh.
• The anticlinal folds that house the gas fields were
formed in Pliocene times(about 2 to 5 million years
ago)
• Natural gas in Bangladesh is mostly supposed to have
long distance migration.
• The gas migrated as much as 4000m upwards from
source rock to accumulate in the reservoir rocks above.
Thank You