The Malampaya Offshore Oil and Gas Field - Assignment Example

The Philippine Government Department of Energy approved Shell Philippine Exploration (SPEX) to build a 500 kilometre undersea pipeline to transfer gas from the Malampaya-Camago fields to the main island of Luzon. Although the fields are in Chinese claimed waters, China did not object to the development (Pumphrey 237). Shell Philippine Exploration (SPEX) developed the Malampaya fields at an estimated cost of $4.5 billion U.S., “the largest single investment in the country” (Kreil 36) and the largest infrastructure project (McCallum 40).

The Malampaya project is a joint venture of the Philippine government with the private firms Chevron Texaco and the Philippines Oil Company Exploration Corporation (PNOC-EC)” (Oxford Business Group 72). Structural interpretation of the 3D seismic data indicated the most prominent structural feature to be a SW-NE oriented fault, forming a crest at the western margin of the carbonate system. This fault was sealed by the Pagasa shales. “Minor normal faults affect the Latee Eocene and Early Oligocene deposits in the North-Eastern termination of the carbonate system forming a short and narrow horst structure” (Fournier, Borgomano and Montaggioni 198). . ubsurface Data Used to Describe the Malampaya Field “The dataset used in this study consists of a 3-dimensional seismic survey acquired by Shell Philippines (SPEX) in 2002, and well data from 10 wells (MA-1 to MA-10)” (Fournier et al 2005, 192).

Core sections are available in wells MA-2, MA-3, MA-4, MA-5, MA-7, and MA-9. The seismic interpretation used prestack time migrated data (PSTM), with zero-phase signal. The seismic polarity is defined as negative amplitude means a downward increase in acoustic impedance, a positive reflection coefficient. The work uses the depositional facies and diagenetic features identified by Fournier et al, 2004 from MA-5 and MA-7, those obtained from thin section analyses on MA-6, MA-8, MA-9, and MA-10, and the re-examination of the rock material studied by Grotsch and Mercadier (1703) from MA-1, MA-2, and MA-3.

Carbon and oxygen isotope analyses on whole-rock samples were used to support diagenetic interpretations. Deposition of the Reservoir Section and Geometry of the Platform The evidence from the investigations by Shell Philippine Exploration (SPEX, 2009) verified the existence of an immense power source. Situated 80 kilometers northwest of Palawan island and located about 3,000 metres below sea level, “the Malampaya field had recoverable reserves of about 2.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves and 85 million barrels of condensate” (Oxford Business Group 72).

A thin oil rim of 65 metres is overlain by a thick gas column of up to 650 metres; these are contained in a high relief carbonate reef build-up complex of the Nido Limestone Formation. It was determined that “28.5 MMscf/ day of gas and 7,500 bbl/day of 30 degrees APL oil” (Department of Energy, 2010) were released every day. The Late Eocene to Early Miocene