As interpreters of the Gulf of Mexico region over the past two decades, we realized that we had amassed enough data to complete a comprehensive analysis of the correlation between the basement structure and oil/gas discovery fields within the Northern Gulf. As long term advocates of establishing basement tectonics as the first step in the evaluation of a frontier area, we were excited at the opportunity to test out our hypotheses or to prove our theory was applicable in the deep water region of the Gulf of Mexico.
The correlation between magnetically derived basement structure and oil/gas production has been demonstrated in many basins around the world. The statistics that we started to gather in 2000 indicate that Gulf of Mexico can be added to the list. The 2015 analysis indicates that approximately 70% of the current oil and gas field discovery reserves can be related to structures either described as steep/faulted flanks or drape over of basement highs. Gulf of Mexico has joined worldwide areas that have been discussed in publications which described the concentration of oil/gas fields on basement structure. To name a few: the Los Angeles Basin of California, the Overthrust Belt of Wyoming, the East Texas basin, offshore Tunisia, north-central Algeria, western Morocco, Gulf of Suez, onshore West Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Peru, Austrian Vienna basin, Yugoslavia, and the Hungarian plains.