ALBERT

Description: Extract The early discovery of the Arbroath Field in 1969, and the Montrose and giant Forties fields in 1970, initiated intensive exploration of the Tertiary deep-marine play in the North Sea region. Numerous subsequent discoveries (Fig. 1), including Frigg (in 1971), Maureen (in 1973), Gannet (in 1973), Andrew (in 1974), Pierce (in 1976), Everest (in 1982), Alba (in 1984), Gryphon (in 1987), Nelson (in 1988), Harding (in 1988), Jotun (in 1994), Siri (in 1995) and Merganser (in 1995), demonstrate the success of this play and the geological diversity of Paleocene and Eocene systems present within the region. Although the North Sea Basin is now considered mature, with Cenozoic reservoirs well along their creaming curve (Vining et al. 2005), recent discoveries (e.g. the Catcher Field in 2010) highlight that potential still remains within intensively explored areas such as the Central North Sea, as well as in the less explored regions such as the Atlantic margin and the Norwegian Sea. The importance of these reservoirs is demonstrated by the large proportion of UK production to which they contribute, amounting to approximately 25% of all production from UK oil fields since 1975 on a barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) basis (Fig. 2). Indeed, over time that proportion has increased from 20% of production in the 1970s and 1980s to 30% from the 1990s. ... This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract.

Description: The Fram discovery, located in the UK Central North Sea, comprises the Paleocene-aged Forties Sandstone Member with an oil rim and primary gas-cap trapped within a four-way dip closure around a pierced salt diapir. The Forties Sandstone Member reservoir at Fram is characterized by very-fine- to fine-grained sandstones interbedded with shales with post-depositional small-scale slumping and sand injection, interpreted to be the product of high-density turbidity currents and debris flows. Deposition was in an overall distal and marginal, basin-floor lobe environment. The Forties reservoir interval is considered to comprise a series of offset-stacked, turbidite lobes characterized by a systematic variation from axial amalgamated sandstone facies to more distal, marginal and thinner-bedded heterolithic sandstone facies, producing an overall sheet-like reservoir architecture. The Forties reservoir at Fram is thinner and poorer when compared with more proximal parts of the Forties submarine fan system, and reservoir quality is strongly controlled by sedimentary facies. The architecture of the reservoir is expected to result in poorer vertical, but greater lateral, stratigraphic continuity when compared with more channelized Forties reservoirs such as the Nelson and Forties fields further to the north. A key step in understanding and characterizing the Fram reservoir was the appraisal drilling in 2009, which included coring, comprehensive wireline logging, formation pressure data acquisition and a drill stem production test. This paper provides an overview of the Fram reservoir geology and demonstrates how integration of data acquired in the 2009 29/3c-8,8z appraisal wells with 3D seismic datasets, existing E&A wells and analogues has helped to improve reservoir characterization and identify the major subsurface uncertainties needing to be addressed during the field-development planning.