Petex: Understanding Fault Seals in a North Sea Exploration Prospect
In a structurally complex area of the North Sea, the success of several near-field exploration opportunities depended on one critical question: would faults act as barriers to hydrocarbon flow, or provide pathways for leakage?
The field contained multiple fault-bound traps in sandstone reservoirs, but uncertainty around fault geometry and sealing behaviour made it difficult to assess which prospects represented the lowest exploration risk. Small differences in the geological interpretation could significantly change how hydrocarbons were expected to move through the subsurface.
The team needed a way to test the structural interpretation, understand the behaviour of the fault system and evaluate how different rock units interacted across faults.
The PETEX structural geology team used restoration, fault displacement analysis and fault seal workflows within MOVE to test the structural interpretation, refine the fault framework and assess likely sealing behaviour throughout the reservoir interval. This provided a much clearer picture of where faults were likely to act as seals and where cross-fault flow could occur.
The outcome was a revised geological model with reduced uncertainty, improved understanding of the fault framework and greater confidence in both exploration prospect evaluation and future well planning.
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