The Shelf to Deep-Water Transition - Using Analogues to understand the Pressure Regime in Un-Drilled Labrador Basins

The future of exploration in Labrador is focussed on transitioning from the shelf in to the deep-water region following the progress of exploration in other similar settings. Understanding the pressure history in such a frontier area must be built on robust use of analogues, i.e. Mid-Norway which has shown that significant discoveries can be made in such deep-water settings as in the deep-sea Nise Formation Fan reservoirs Mud-weights in many of the Labrador Shelf wells are low; however Pothurst P-19 took a very high kicks taken, implying under-balanced drilling and mis-understanding of the pore pressure regime in these Basins. Moreover in the Saglek and Hopedale Basins, the wells are shelfal to upper slope in terms of structural position and with the focus to move in to deeper water targets in the future. Following the announcement on September 13, 2011 to shoot large-scale multi-client 2D seismic survey of offshore Labrador into the deep water, understanding the shelf-to-deep water transition becomes even more crucial.