American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2014 - 59

SpecialReport: Global Opportunities
Arch and is notably different in character to the northern and central basins, reflecting the basin fill. The southern basin extends through
Montenegro into the Ionian Basin and includes the petroleum province
offshore Albania. The Mesozoic carbonate platform margin is clearly distinguished by changes in seismic facies and the thickness of
the Triassic to the top of the Cretaceous interval across this margin.
Oligo-Miocene and Plio-Pleistocene stratigraphic plays also are interpreted in the southern basin on-lapping deeper structures. The
Messinian unit is a characteristically strong reflector and may represent a clastic play south of the Gargano Arch.
A cross-Adriatic dip line of the Italian and Croatian platform
margins clarifies the hydrocarbon system proven by drilling offshore Italy. Shallow, small structures close to the Italian mainland are fed by hydrocarbons generated in the deep Croatian basin
to the east. However, what is perhaps most striking are the relative simplicity of the hydrocarbon system and the lack of complexity from Dinaric compression. This suggests that the southern basin has high potential for large, high-value traps.
High-quality seismic data permit the hydrocarbon potential of
the underexplored Croatian Adriatic to be assessed for the first time.
The dataset images deep, source-rock-bearing basins as well as
multiple carbonate platforms. Combined with a new regulatory/fiscal structure and the ongoing licensing round, the insights
gleaned from the regional 2-D data are helping unlock the imminent potential to develop the Croatian offshore into a much more
significant hydrocarbon province over the next few years.
r

BARBARA DORIC is chief executive officer of the Croatian Hydrocarbon Agency in Zagreb. Established this year,
the CHA participates in all activities related to tender procedure and issuing exploitation permits, monitors the fulfillment of investor contractual obligations, and collects
and prepares information for presentation to potential investors in the Croatian oil and gas sector. Before helping
establish the CHA, Doric served at another government institution and played a key role in developing the regulatory
framework for Croatia's first offshore exploration and production licensing round. Prior to that, Doric was a senior
consultant responsible for the Southeast European energy
sector at a management consulting company.
NEIL HODGSON is geoscience director at Spectrum. He
joined the company in 2012 after a 25-year career in exploration
geology roles at BP, BG, Premier Oil and Matra Petroleum.
Hodgson manages Spectrum's geology, geophysics and GIS technology team in the U.K. office, and is focused on finding good
hydrocarbon stories behind Spectrum's 1.5 million-kilometer
2-D seismic library, and acquiring new data worldwide.
RICHARD WRIGLEY is the lead geoscientist at Spectrum,
working on the Croatian 2-D seismic acquisition project. Following a successful 25-year career in oil and gas exploration
with Britoil, BP and BG, he has worked with Spectrum in its
U.K. office for the past year..

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American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2014

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