Aerial view of part of the Skoorsteenburg formation in the Tanqua Karoo Basin of South Africa.

This 450-metre-thick Tanqua Karoo Basin fan complex in South Africa dates from Permian.

Fieldwork comprised extensive outcrop mapping as well as coring over depths of more 1,000 metres and petrophysical logging of shallow boreholes drilled behind cliff faces and a little further inland.

Leading-edge photogrammetric techniques were used to register all spatial data with extraordinary accuracy (two centimetres).

The resulting digital model has been used as an experimental reservoir analogue.

This has provided additional insight into the geological and petrophysical complexity of genuine deepwater sandstone reservoirs, the flow of hydrocarbons through them, and the best ways of developing them.

The potential benefits to Statoil’s North Sea and Atlantic margin deepwater interests are obvious.