Reservoir Quality and Provenance of the Late Cretaceous Channelized Turbidites of the Walvis Basin, Offshore Namibia

Summary The Walvis Basin, offshore Namibia, features seismic megasequences typical of a passive margin continental slope. Within the Early to Late Cretaceous there are a series of extensively developed channelized turbidite systems measuring approximately 100m in total vertical thickness and 5km in width which give rise to widespread reservoir potential along this part of the Namibian margin. In October 2018 Chariot drilled the 2312/7-1, “Springbok-1”, wildcat exploration well pursuing a frontier oil play in these reservoir fairways with Springbok-1 located c. 100km from the nearest offset well. Springbok-1 encountered well developed reservoir on prognosis, with good poro-perm characteristics despite its mineralogical immaturity, confirming these systems as viable future exploration targets. Post-well studies have combined wireline log data and cuttings analysis such as x-ray fluorescence (XRF) data to assess reservoir quality and understand differences in reservoir system provenance in Albian and Aptian age targets.