The Ceuta area forms the southeast extension of a major oil accumulation in the Maracaibo Basin, at present Venezuela’s main oil producing area.

 The Ceuta Field, with current reserves of 600 MMBBls of light to medium gravity oil, is a major wrench fault structure, producing from Miocene and Eocene sandstones. Several major transcurrent faults are recognized in the Maracaibo Basin, each defining major producing oil fields like the Ceuta Field. These structures, roughly parallel to each other, are oriented in a North-South direction.

The principal plays in the Maracaibo Basin consist of Miocene and Eocene sandstones and, at greater depths, fractured Cretaceous carbonate reservoirs and fractured basement, all charged from the rich marine La Luna source rocks of Upper Cretaceous age.

The discovery of the Ceuta Field was the result of an intensive drilling campaign executed in the 1970s, based on conventional seismic techniques. At that time the exploration of the area was oriented towards the main North-South trending structures. The new exploration, undertaken during the last four years, was based on the structural modelling of the area in terms of the known transcurrent faulting.

 This allowed the recognition, in areas between the major trends, of three new types of traps related to different styles of faulting, such as normal, compressive and antithetic transcurrent.

The successful drilling of these structures has led to the discovery of an additional 1100 MMBBls of oil outside the existing Ceuta Field, confirmed by an intensive drilling appraisal campaign.