North Caspian
The North (or Pri) Caspian includes the Kashagan and Tengiz fields, both ranked within the ten largest oil fields ever discovered, making the basin one of the most important regions in Asia for production and exploration for years to come. Late Palaeozoic carbonate reservoirs form part of an enormously thick succession, deposited over a basement with disputed age and origin. Permian and Mesozoic clastic strata also form reservoirs within the upper part of the basin stratigraphy, in a succession strongly affected by salt tectonics.
Map of Region
Regional Expertise
CASP has produced reports on the geology of the North Caspian Basin as part of our long-standing research on the geology of the former Soviet Union. These reports range from regional reviews of key time intervals to the petrographic description of subsurface samples from the basin interior. The North Caspian Basin formed part of a major CASP literature review of the Palaeozoic margin of Baltica during the 2006-2007 phase of the project. This work included the production of new paleogeographic maps, revision of the basin’s biostratigraphic framework and the creation of a large GIS database. The basin also formed part of a regional review of Mesozoic clastic depositional systems and reservoir quality carried out between 2017 and 2020. This review included an extensive, literature-based, petrographic and heavy mineral dataset of sandstones from around the margins of the basin, and the analysis of Early Cretaceous subsurface and outcrop sediments from its Russian sector.
Most Recent Reports
- Detrital zircon U-Pb age data from Jurassic to Cretaceous sediments of the greater Caspian region: Insights into sediment source areas and dispersal patterns CASP.GCPP2019-20.4
- Defining source area signatures in the greater Middle and North Caspian regions CASP.GCPP2017-18.2
- The Palaeozoic stratigraphy of the Pricaspian Basin, and the Southern and Middle Urals CASP.Baltica.3
- Preliminary report of 1998 fieldwork in the Karatau, Kazakhstan CASP.CAP.4
- Carbonate reservoirs of the Pri-Caspian Basin CASP.arc.628