The Eridanos Delta: A Sequence Stratigraphic Study of the North Sea Upper Section with Focus on Shallow Gas Potential

The Late Cenozoic Eridanos River brought vast amount of sediments to the North Sea Basin accumulating more than 1000m of deltaic deposits in less than 3.5 Ma. Since the gas discoveries in the shallow sediments were made, more attention is being paid to these deltaic deposits and that resulted in more data availability. This study concentrates on the Eridanos Delta and identifies the properties of the delta in terms of its progadation distance and sedimentation rate and compare different time models to the ones provided by Overeem (2001) and Kuhlmann (2008). Furthermore, studies the reservoir rocks in terms of their petrophysical properties and facies distribution. Moreover investigates the reasoning behind the shallow sediments gas accumulations and factors behind the concentration of all the discoveries around the A and B blocks. Lastly, constructs a 3D model of the reservoirs distribution in the study area and their properties by integrating the study results of geological, geophysical, petrophysical and reservoir engineering data. Such results were achieved by interpreting a high resolution 3D seismic survey and 2D lines in combination with wells’ wireline logs and core data. Seismically, a total of 12 units were mapped to categories the successions (3.6 – 1.8Ma) that deposited post the Mid Miocene Unconformity. In addition, more than 20 wells were used to understand the reservoir properties in which seven wells have cores. Sedimentological aspects were assessed by studying the descriptions of cores and thin sections and the measurements of the core plugs. Gas accumulations were studied by evaluating the production data for gas and linking the gas to its source. Applied Earth Science