The significance of normal faults in the exploration and production of North Sea hydrocarbons

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Abstract
The Mesozoic geological history of the northern North Sea was dominated by extensional faulting. In addition to forming the most important hydrocarbon traps, such faults can be shown to exert a significant degree of control over the distribution of mature source rocks, and the deposition and erosion of reservoir rocks. As exploration and production have progressed the importance of small normal faults has been increasingly recognized. Although they do not totally offset reservoir formations, such small faults may provide lateral seals, thus disrupting hydrocarbon migration routes, forming subtle traps and causing technical problems during production by unanticipated compartmentalization of fields. Consequently, as the commercial size of fields is reduced by improving production technology and the North Sea matures as a hydrocarbon province, a thorough understanding of the origins and characteristics of normal faults as well as a command of the increasingly sophisticated techniques for analysing the behaviour of these faults will be vital to successful exploration programmes.