Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

Although this is not an assessment of the resource volume of
hydrocarbons, the table serves to identify those coastal states with ELCS areas
that have some hydrocarbon resource potential.
The top ten ranked countries, according to those with the greatest
ELCS areas (cited in brackets by million km 2 ) containing sedimentary
sequences in excess of 1 km thick and hence having potential hydrocarbon
resources are: Antarctica (2.23), Canada (0.95), Brazil (0.95), USA (0.75), Sri
Lanka (0.65), India (0.58), Argentina (0.52), Madagascar (0.49), Russia (0.41)
and Morocco (0.33). The bottom ranked countries are: Kenya (0.02), Sierra
Leone (0.02), the Congo Republic (0.015), Zaire (0.013), Guinea (0.012),
Bangladesh (0.005), Mauritania (0.003), Equatorial Guinea, Tonga and
Venezuela (each with ~0.001).
In their report (Ranking Of The World's Oil And Gas Provinces By
Known Petroleum Volumes), Klett et al., (1997), identify hydrocarbon
resources for forty-one offshore provinces that contain known reserve
volumes. These areas are shown on Figure 21 in green and listed on Table 4,
which also show their oil and gas volume potentials. Although none of these
provinces coincide with the ELCS regions, their proximity to those regions,
accumulated thickness of sediment, and the basement type are combined to
indicate hydrocarbon potential from high to low (Figure 25).
On the basis of known hydrocarbon volume reserve, the top ten
ranked offshore provinces identified by Klett et al. (1997) are identified in
Table 7 below (by province number – referred to on Figure 21, and billion
barrels oil equivalence (BBOE) of oil and gas). Also identified are the ELCS
regions (by number, referred to on Figure 7) and their coastal states, that lie
closest to each of the USGS identified hydrocarbon provinces. The top ten
ranked provinces are given in Table 7.
Table 7 gives an indication of the relationship between known reserve
volumes and the adjacent ELCS regions where there is significant
hydrocarbon potential.
IINTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 724