How much data, and of what types, defined the pre-salt petroleum system in Brazil's Santos Basin?

What is it about?

Brazil's Santos Basin today is one of the world's most prolific with super-giant reserves but in 2005, it was still considered a minor gas-prone province. The analysis we presented as a poster at AAPG-ACE in Calgary laid out evidence for an oil-prone pre-salt source that must have charged every pre-salt structure from basin center across the Santos Outer Basin High. Eighteen months later, the first of eleven consecutive giant pre-salt discoveries was announced, more than validating our reasoning as presented in this look-back case study.

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Why is it important?

As combined in multi-disciplinary studies, weak indicators from varied, scant but validated individual samples can provide powerful geologic insights. Although Brazil's Santos Basin was, in 2005, considered a gas-prone disappointment, the authors' interpretation then saw potential for large volumes of liquid hydrocarbons sourced from a lacustrine Guaratiba interval of Aptian age and trapped below a regional salt layer; subsequently dramatically verified by super-giant discoveries from late 2006. The lesson? Joint efforts across disciplines provide insights from scattered measurements that even the most complete single data sets cannot offer.

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