Sequence Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Reservoir Modelling of the Coral Reservoir, Offshore Northern Mozambique.

The Coral Field is located in the Area 4, northern offshore Mozambique, and is part of the Mamba-Coral reservoir complex that can be considered as one of the world's biggest conventional gas discoveries of the last decades. The Mamba and Coral fields are estimated to bear over 80 TCF of natural gas in place, distributed over several Paleogene reservoir units. The Coral Field is of Lower Eocene age and is composed of a deep water basin floor fan with proximal turbidite channel and lobe deposits. Generally, the coarse and massive reservoir sandstones are extraordinarily thick (>50 m), clean and homogeneous compared to other deep water plays, (e.g. Gulf of Mexico and West Africa). High quality 3D seismic and data from four wells, including 144 m core, indicate that the excellent reservoir quality of the Coral field can be related to the presence of strong, deep water bottom currents that influenced the deposition of gravity-flows. An integrated sedimentological approach on multiple scales, comprising detailed sedimentological core descriptions, seismic stratigraphy and seismic attribute analysis, provides new insights into the depositional processes and the reservoir architecture of a fascinating deep water play. Supported by the latest drilling results, this integrated workflow allowed detailed mapping and modelling of the reservoir bodies, which permitted prediction of the reservoir quality and optimization of the field development.