Offshore staff
SUBIACO, Australia — Empyrean has issued an update on technical studies for the next phase of exploration on Block 29/11 in the Pearl River Mouth Basin, 200 km southeast of Hong Kong, China.
The current focus is on addressing the geological risk associated with the 891-MMbbl Topaz oil prospect.
With CNOOC, Empyrean is completing a regional oil migration study. This includes data on temperature, pressure, timing of oil maturation, and successful oil migration pathway mapping.
The goal is to map oil migration from the proven source rock to the southwest that charges four CNOOC oil discoveries immediately west of Block 29/11 to Topaz.
Similar studies will be conducted from a new source/kitchen located wholly within the block, again with oil migration pathways mapped to Topaz.
At the same time, a 3D seismic inversion project is in progress focused on Topaz; it uses oil properties, reservoir temperature and pressure, and water salinity data from CNOOC’s oil discovery wells combined with reservoir porosity and mineralogical data from Empyrean well logs and core.
Phase 1 will assess whether an oil-bearing reservoir case can be distinguished from water-bearing reservoir in the elastic property domain of seismic inversion. Phase 2 involves inverting the 3D seismic data to generate several datasets for the elastic properties, which will then be analyzed to high grade the Topaz prospect.
Empyrean says the acquisition of Block 29/11 heralded a new phase for the company when it became an operator with 100% of the exploration rights of the permit during the exploration phase of the project. In the event of a commercial discovery, CNOOC will have a back in right to 51% of the permit.
12.19.2023
