Oil and gas are not fossil fuels

 Danilo Antón

Oil and gas ARE NOT fossil fuels, they are formed in the upper layers of the Earth mantle and surge through the crust geological formations through of fracture zones and accumulating below impermeable layers.

Normally, petroleum exploration drilling campaigns have been developed in sedimentary basins assuming that all oil fields are biotic in origin. However, there are many data showing that this is not so. There are plenty of oil fields that are not found in sedimentary formations proving that hydrocarbons are originated at much deeper levels and that availability of petroleum and gas is much more widespread than previously thought.  

 In the following paragraphs we list some examples of oil fields in chrystaline basement zones. 

In 1997, a conference was held in Kazan (Tatarstan, Russia) on oilfields in granite. At that meeting productive oil fields in chrystalline terrains are found in Chibuiuskoye, Verkhneschutinskoye, Zelenetsky, Chernorechensky, Lekkembsky and Timansky in Russia and on the edges of the Dnieper-Donets Basin in Ukraine.

In the case of Dnieper- Donets 12 fields were discovered and developed in crystalline basement with a potential of 219 million metric tons of oil equivalent. The potentially productive area covers an area of 30- 35 km per 400 km and producing rocks include granite, schist and amphibolite pre-Cambrian ²

A well in Novoyelkhovskaya, Tatarstan penetrated the crystalline basement 1845 meters and found significant amounts of hydrocarbons below 4,500 meters.

The Shaim oil field, East Siberia, located on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, has several productive wells in fractured basement rocks (although the main production area is in sedimentary formations).

In the Kazakhstan-Oimasha (Kazakhstan) there is a well field that extracts 1382 barrels per day in fractured and altered granite to a depth of 3,720- 3.752 meters. ³

In East Siberia large deposits that have been discovered in very ancient dolomites (1,650- 650 million years) constitute the oldest known productive fields known sedimentary formations of this size. In that place there is no sedimentary layers of biological origin that may be considered source or mother rocks. The hypothesis of the rise of oil from depth and its entrapment in dolomitic structures is the most plausible theory.

Another oil field in chrystalline formations is the White Tiger oil field located offshore in Vietnam. It is an oil and gas occurrence fully included in granite formations. While some geologists think there might be some lateral migration from biogenic production areas, this assertion is not based on clear evidencess

Again, in this case, we think that it is likely that hydrocarbons come from depth.

From the book "Inexhautibles? Oil and Gas", Danilo Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones