Offshore exploration has enabled many nations to diversify their energy sources, thus pushing exploratory boundaries and improving energetic safety. Additionally, deep water exploration has boosted the development of new drilling and exploitation technologies, giving access to previously unattainable resources.

 

The western South Atlantic margin , south of Brazil, includes a vast area with  intermittent oil and gas exploration activities that derived in little success. The Austral Basin is an exception, with significant prospective resources that are mainly due to its continuity from the continental mass.

 

Recent findings in 2022 in the Namibia conjugated margin have caused a new wave of interest in the region, since they have uncovered new geological models. These models are still under scrutiny to understand their extension and application to the conjugate western South Atlantic margin.

 

Offshore Uruguay is the exact conjugate to the Namibia discoveries. This strategic location encouraged a successful Bid Round  in 2022, where  all the offshoreblocks offeredfor oil and gas exploration were awarded. This reactivation in the country will result in carrying out  studies and data acquisition in the next few years.

 

Likewise, since 2018, Argentina has reactivated the offshore exploration in the blocks offered by the government during the 2019 bid rounds. The Argerich well, drilled in 2024, was part of this campaign and became the first deep water exploratory well in our country. Even though the well turned out to be dry, the data gathered from this well  paired with the multiple  seismic acquisitions and magnetometry and gravimetry surveys, activatedan increase in knowledge of these basins  and in consequence potentially trigger a new stage in the country’s offshore exploration.

 

 

 

Objectives:

 

Discuss breakthroughs in the offshore southern South Atlantic geo-scientific knowledge and its application to the exploration and development of natural resources.

 

Subtopics:

 

• Geological evolution and pre-rift geodynamics prior to Gondwana’s rupture.

• Mesozoic rifting: vulcanism, tectonism, and sedimentation. Continental rupture models – impact on basin models.

• Post-rift tectono-stratigraphic evolution of Meso-Cenozoic basins.

• Marine dynamics, sedimentation and geomorphology of the continental margins and abyssal areas

• Regional exploration and development: Petroleum systems, prospects and leads, productive fields, geo-hazards, geophysical or geological data acquisition, 2D & 3D seismic, grav./mag, slicks and seeps, other methods.

• Studies on infrastructure, operations, logistics, and regulations concerning hydrocarbon exploration and production activities in the Argentine-Uruguayan offshore

 

 

 

Referents:

 

• Sebastián Galeazzi, Socio Personal
• Estefanía Tudisca, Pluspetrol
• Pedro Kress, YPF
• Emilio Rojas, YPF
• Alberto Sánchez López, Equinor
• Rodolfo González, Total Energies
• Gabriel Giacomone, Pecom
• Martín Pereira, Pluspetrol