Geology and assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources of the Mezen’ Basin Province, 2008

The Mezen’ Basin Province is situated along the White and Barents Seas in the northeastern part of the Russian Federation. Only a small area of the province, part of one graben, extends slightly north of the Arctic Circle onto the Kanin-Kola monocline, where it converges with the Timan-Varanger deformed belt and the Fennoscandian shield.

The main petroleum potential in the Mezen’ Basin Province is associated with grabens in which clastic Proterozoic source and reservoir rocks are present. One Proterozoic-Paleozoic Composite Total Petroleum System was defined, although Paleozoic and younger strata are too thin (<1–2 km) for significant petroleum accumulation. The total thickness of the sedimentary interval is <6 km. The Northwest Mezen’ Basin Assessment Unit was delineated north of the Arctic Circle. Proterozoic (Riphean) mudstone is organic rich and thermally mature, providing a source for petroleum; younger Proterozoic (Vendian) rocks are also organic rich but thermally immature (Kuz’min, 2005). Because of its limited extent, the potential for an oil or gas field exceeding the minimum size of 50 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMBOE) within the small graben north of the Arctic Circle is remote (assessment-unit probability, 0.005). Therefore, the Mezen’ Basin Province was not quantitatively assessed.