Studies of “remaining” hydrocarbon potential of Western Siberia: general trends and methodology

The paper is dedicated to the following three occasions: 75th anniversary of the beginning of geological exploration, 70th anniversary of the first field discovery in Western Siberia, and 70th anniversary of the Russian Research Institute of Petroleum Geology. The authors analyse key results of geological studies of the West Siberian Petroleum Province subsurface for the mentioned period, propose the focus areas of further studies in the remote and underexplored but oil and gas promising areas of this province (West, South, and East zones). A detailed description of the promising zones and information on their resource potential of about 27 billion tonnes of oil equivalent with some predominance of gaseous hydrocarbons is presented. The rational approach to the process of further geological studies of the West Siberian Petroleum Province subsurface is proposed. According to this approach, promising areas for detailed areal CDP seismic surveys and drilling should be chosen on the basis of integrated analysis of regional gravity and magnetic as well as seismic data, geoindication interpretation of surface-contour maps and satellite images. Critical analysis of the quality of previously conducted exploration works is an important stage of hydrocarbon potential assessment. Bulk reprocessing of legacy CDP seismic data (both regional and areal) with the use of modern software and hardware, which is coupled with the thorough analysis and critical quality assessment of the previous drilling in the marginal areas of the West Siberian Petroleum Province, makes a methodological basis for discovery of new oil and gas fields worthy of the scale of Western Siberia