Madagascar (Madagasikara)

Bemolanga is the name of a large tar sands deposit in the onshore Morondava Basin of Madagascar discovered in the early 1900s. Image File history File links Flag_of_Madagascar. ... Athabasca Oil Sands Tar sands, also referred to as oil sands, bituminous sands, or (in Venezuela) extra-heavy oil, are a mixture of sand or clay, water, and extremely heavy crude oil. ...

Madagascar Oil is current license holder of the Bemolanga field. It describes the field as being a giant bitumen field of 8-13ºAPI low sulphur (<1%) and low vanadium ultra heavy oil. It gives the oil resources as: Madagascar Oil SA (a subsidiary of Madagascar Oil Limited, Bermuda) is a Malagasy company focussing on the development, exploration and production of petroleum. ... The American Petroleum Institute gravity, or API gravity, is a measure of how heavy or light a petroleum liquid is compared to water. ... For the chemical element see: sulfur. ... General Name, symbol, number vanadium, V, 23 Chemical series transition metals Group, period, block 5, 4, d Appearance silver-grey metal Standard atomic weight 50. ... Athabasca Oil Sands Tar sands, also referred to as oil sands, bituminous sands, or (in Venezuela) extra-heavy oil, are a mixture of sand or clay, water, and extremely heavy crude oil. ...

The field is at 0-30 m (0-100 ft) depth and about 120 km (75 mi) from the coast. “bbl” redirects here. ... Oil in place is a term referring to the total hydrocarbon content of an oil reservoir and is often abbreviated STOOIP, which stands for In this case, stock tank refers to the storage vessel containing the oil after production. ... Peak Oil Depletion Scenarios Graph which depicts cumulative published depletion studies by ASPO and other depletion analysts. ...

13 wells and over 500 core-holes were drilled from the 1950s to the early 1980s. The hydrocarbons are found in the Isalo and Amboloando formations over an area of approximately 400 km² (150 sq mi). The prospective surface mining area is defined by wherever there is less than 40 m (130 ft) depth to top tarsand. The average overburden thickness in the surface mining area is around 15 m (50 ft) (considerably less than average overburden thickness in Canada). An oil well is seen in Texas. ... Overburden is the term used in mining to describe material that lies above the area of economic interest. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

The source rocks for the Bemolanga oil is believed to be the Karoo formation of the Middle Sakamena Shale. The field was lifted to its present near surface location due to the renwed uplifting and seaward tilting of the island of Madagascar during the Tertiary period.

The field is located north of the Tsimiroro heavy oil field and east of the town of Morafenobe. Heavy crude oil is the type of crude oil which is characterised by the presence of high amount of wax in it, as compared to light crude oil which contains a lesser amount of wax. ...

The Bemolanga field gives it name to the homonymous song by the Malagasy group, Mahaleo. Mahaleo (free in Malagasy) is the name of a music band from Madagascar. ...

Notes

References

• Madagascar Oil website
• Bemolanga brochure
• Pete Jeans (Exploration Consultant)

External Links

• DeGolyer & MacNaughton (petroleum consultants)