Locating Petroleum Prospects: Application of Principle of Petroleum Generation and Migration — Geological Modeling

Abstract

In the early days of petroleum exploration, wells were drilled where oil or gas seepages indicated the presence of petroleum. Later, with increasing sophistication of geological knowledge, and especially with the advent of exploration geophysics, the decision to drill a well was additionally taken on the basis of the recognition of suitable structures, such as anticlines, fault traps, unconformity traps and reefs. Frequently, the selection of a structure to be drilled was based on intuition and general experience rather than on pertinent information, because very little information was available whether or not a trap would contain hydrocarbons.