Africa Experience

East Africa

Our stratigraphers have extensive experience of the stratigraphy of the African Margins, including Neogene to Cretaceous sections on the East African Margin. This includes detailed analysis of sections from Tanzania and Mozambique (including wellsite support) with some experience gained in Madagascar, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

North Africa

PetroStrat stratigraphers have considerable experience in the provision of integrated biostratigraphic and multi-well sequence stratigraphic and wellsite services throughout North Africa, comprising Palaeozoic, Cretaceous and Tertiary successions.

Morocco

PetroStrat has extensive biostratigraphic experience in Morocco. This includes:

• Multi-well palynological analysis in the western Anti-Atlas region.
• A proprietary data review of many offshore wells and DSDP material, followed by biostratigraphic analyses of two wells, as part of a drilling campaign.
• The analyses of numerous wells further north in the Atlas region, including a multi-well Palaeozoic palynological study of six wells and one micropalaeontological wellsite over a Jurassic section.
• Extended wellsite micropalaeontology covering the Neogene to Cretaceous interval of 2 deepwater wells offshore Morocco
• Extended onshore wellsite micropalaeontology in the Fez locality over several months covering a structurally complex, thrust belt succession with repeated sections of Miocene and Jurassic.
• Additional wells analysed towards the east of the country, including palynological wellsite on two wells.

Algeria and Tunisia

PetroStrat has unrivalled experience in the Palaeozoic palynostratigraphy of Algeria (41 wells), including multi-well investigations of the entire Algerian Saharan Platform, the Ghadames / Berkine Basin, the South Atlas region and the Illizi Basin. PetroStrat’s expertise extends into Tunisia (52 wells), the majority within the Ghadames Basin of Tunisia, but also with numerous wells in the Chotts Basin, north of the Telemzane arch.

Libya

PetroStrat stratigraphers have previous experience of 200+ Libyan wells ranging in age from Cambrian to Neogene. This includes extensive regional data review, quantitative biostratigraphic analyses and palaeoenvironmental interpretation from the Murzuq, Sirte, Tripolitanian, Kufrah and Ghadames Basins and a wellsite assignment offshore Benghazi. The expertise includes the erection of high resolution biozonation schemes and rationalization of the lithostratigraphic scheme applied to the Sirte Basin. PetroStrat has analysed 19 wells from Libya, the majority located in the Ghadames and Sirte Basins, but with additional wells from the Murzuq and Kufra Basins and the Cyrenaica Platform.

In addition, PetroStrat staff have experience of extended wellsite micropalaeontology offshore Benghazi covering the Neogene to Cretaceous interval. This included review of several offset wells to provide the event driven biostratigraphy then used as a countdown for casing, coring and TD picks.

Egypt

PetroStrat stratigraphers have extensive previous experience in Egypt, especially of multi-well studies in the Western Desert area and the Gulf of Suez, including wellsite monitoring.

PetroStrat has analysed four wells from Egypt: two in the Western Desert, one in the Nile Delta and one in the North Red Sea, including wellsite covering the Neogene to Palaeozoic.

West Africa

PetroStrat has a wealth of experience in the provision of integrated bio-stratigraphic and multi-well sequence stratigraphic services throughout the West and South African margin. This includes the Tertiary and the Cretaceous, the post-Salt and the pre-Salt.

PetroStrat has developed a high-resolution composite bio-zonation for the Tertiary and Cretaceous along the West African Atlantic margins. This provides integrated, regionally correlative bio-events derived from all three biostratigraphic disciplines (micro, nanno and paly), so overcoming facies- and palaeoenvironmental variations. This zonation is calibrated to the published zonation schemes and, in the post-Salt marine sections, to the sequence chrono-stratigraphic frameworks of Gradstein et al.

Mauritania and Senegal

• Multidisciplinary analyses of 13 wells from Mauritania and Senegal. This includes all the wells of the recent exploration campaign across the border of the two countries in and around the Greater Tortue area and is now continuing into the development phase, including palynological wellsite monitoring of a recent well.
• Data review of legacy DSDP data within the Mauritania, Cape Verde Islands and Senegal area.

Liberia and Sierra Leone

• Multidisciplinary analyses of four wells in Sierra Leone and nine wells in Liberia, including real-time wellsite monitoring of one well in each countries.

Côte d’Ivoire

• The multidisciplinary analyses of twenty wells and the review of vintage biostratigraphy of a further twelve wells. The analyses include one well, which was monitored at wellsite.

Ghana

• A wealth of experience offshore Ghana, with the multidisciplinary analyses of over seventy wells. Since 2007, PetroStrat has carried out high resolution biostratigraphic, sequence stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental analyses and correlation of the Mahogany Reservoir in the majority of exploration, appraisal and development wells in the Jubilee Field and adjacent parts of the TEN Field.
• Wellsite monitoring has been extensively used in Ghana, with the real-time monitoring of eleven deepwater wells.
• PetroStrat has also reviewed the vintage biostratigraphy of a further five wells, three of them in the Offshore Cape Three Points area and two of them further east, in the Keta basin.

Benin

• Multidisciplinary analyses of two wells, including real-time wellsite monitoring at one of the wells.

Nigeria

• PetroStrat biostratigraphic scientists have considerable experience of the tropical Tertiary deltaic/marginal marine section, with PetroStrat having analysed two well sections.

Chad

• Multidisciplinary analyses of two wells from the Termit Basin of Chad, which provided the challenge of analysing non-marine and restricted marine well sections.

Cameroon

• Extensive experience offshore Rio del Rey and Douala basins, including the integrated biostratigraphic analyses of seven wells and the review of vintage biostratigraphic data of a further thirteen wells. The analyses include the real-time monitoring of one well at wellsite. Onshore, PetroStrat has analysed a further three wells.
• To the south of the country PetroStrat has analysed a further two offshore wells and reviewed vintage data from three wells.

Equatorial Guinea

• PetroStrat biostratigraphershave considerable prior industrial experience analysing exploration and development wells in both the Niger Delta area and the Rio Muni Basin of Equatorial Guinea. In more recent years, PetroStrat has analysed four well sections from one field in the Rio Muni Basin and reviewed the vintage biostratigraphy of a further three wells from this basin.

Gabon

• Extensive experience of both marine post-Salt and non-marine pre-Salt well sections, offshore and onshore Gabon. This includes the multidisciplinary analyses of twenty wells, including the real-time analyses of two offshore wells at wellsite.
• Pre-Salt sections are analysed using a combination of palynology and micropalaeontology (ostracods).

Congo

• Extensive experience of both marine post-Salt and non-marine pre-Salt well sections, offshore and onshore Congo. This includes the multidisciplinary analyses of thirteen wells and the review of vintage biostratigraphic data from fourteen wells.
• Pre-Salt sections are analysed using a combination of palynology and micropalaeontology (ostracods).

Angola

• Extensive experience of both marine post-Salt and non-marine pre-Salt well sections, offshore Angola. This includes the multidisciplinary analyses of sixteen wells.
• The biostratigraphy of one well was monitored onshore in Luanda
• Pre-Salt sections are analysed using a combination of palynology and micropalaeontology (ostracods).

Namibia

• Multidisciplinary biostratigraphic analyses of two wells and the review of vintage biostratigraphic data from a further six wells.

South Africa

SoutPetroStrat has recently completed a substantial proprietary multi-well study on selected deepwater wells from the Orange Basin, offshore South Africa. Results are comparable with several Namibian wells we analysed some years ago.