Abstract

Krishna Godavari Basin, located on the east coast of India, is a pericratonic passive margin basin comprising sediments ranging in age from Permian to Recent. In the West Godavari sub basin, hydrocarbon exploration is targeted to the pre-Trappean sediments i.e., Cretaceous and older, which were classified mainly into four units viz., (i) Rift fill/Gollapalli/Kanukollu of late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, (ii) High Gamma High Resistivity (HG-HR) shale sequence of Lower Cretaceous, (iii) argillaceous section (Tirupati lower part) of Upper Cretaceous and (iv) arenaceous section (Tirupati upper part) of Upper Cretaceous ages. Presence of good source rocks with organic rich intervals is observed suggesting good hydrocarbon generation potential for this sub basin. Though oil and gas discoveries are made relatively in a large number of wells, the commercial scale finds are limited and are disproportionate to the expected potential. The present study, an effort to know the actual potential of the sub basin by integrating the geochemical data on a regional scale, is aimed at understanding the HC potential of the sub basin.