Geo&Bio (Dec 2022)
The development of ideas on and prospects of oil and gas capacity of the south-eastern part of the Dnipro–Donetsk Depression
Abstract
The aim of this work is to analyse the scientific achievements and mistakes in the search for hydrocarbons in the south-eastern part of the Dnipro–Donetsk Depression (DDD), highlighting successful and erroneous scenarios. The scientific forecast of the oil and gas potential of the territory (at the beginning of the 19th century) was based on indirect data on the presence of salt dome structures and drew on analogies with foreign oil and gas-bearing areas of similar structure. However, the article substantiates the version that when the first oil field was discovered in the region, the scientific research of geologists was not taken into account, and the deposit was discovered accidentally, during exploration work aimed at searching for potassium-bearing raw materials. Further study of the oil and gas potential of the region was already scientifically justified, and, as a result, specialised organizations were created and the foundations for targeted search for oil and gas in the region were laid. The article highlights the stages associated with both the discovery of various types of hydrocarbon deposits and the development of scientific ideas about the structures of the oil and gas complex of the DDD. The first stage includes the search for all anticlinal structures expressed in the Meso-Cenozoic structural plan. As a result, the Shebelinsky deposit, the largest in Europe, and a number of smaller deposits were discovered. Subsequent search for analogues of the Shebelinsky deposit did not yield results and led to an almost 30-year-long pause in the discovery of new deposits. The next stage was the exploration of upstream zones and the discovery of a number of deposits in the Lower Permian–Upper Carboniferous oil and gas complex. Having exhausted the resources of the structures, this stage ended with a more than 20-year-long pause. The last stage can be considered the discovery of a deposit on the structure of a non-anticline type, with a lithological type of screening of the deposit, in a deflection, and genetically not confined to the salt diapir. At the end of the article, based on an analysis of the errors and achievements of the preliminary stages of the study of oil and gas potential, directions for further exploration work that will contribute to an increase of the hydrocarbon potential of Ukraine are proposed.
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