TaskForceMajella

42°02′N 14°02′E / 42.03°N 14.03°E / 42.03; 14.03

TaskForceMajella (TFM)
SponsorsEni, NorskHydro
LocationMontagna della Majella, Central Italy
Project managerDr. J.P. van Dijk (Janpieter van Dijk; Johannes Petrus van Dijk)
PartnersUniversities, Research Institutes
Duration1998 – 2005

TaskForceMajella (TFM) is an industry-funded geoscientific research project conducted between the years 1998 and 2005. The project involved numerous universities distributed worldwide, and was sponsored by a number of international major oil companies. The area of research was the Majella Mountain in Central Italy, regarded as an analogue of a faulted and fractured hydrocarbon reservoir as can be found in major provinces like the Middle East, Caspian Basin, Mediterranean Basin, and other areas. The scope was to obtain knowledge on the relation between fracture and fault generation, and all types of geological aspects of the evolution of the geological structure.[1][2]

  1. ^ Sometimes the TFM is confused with a project of petroleum exploration in a selected area. This is based on a misunderstanding and wishfull thinking. No initiative of this kind has ever been conducted by the involved energy companies. The area of the Majella Mountain shows no exploration potential whatsoever and is, in that sense, not interesting at all. The area was selected for scientific reasons in order to study the Mountain as an example of an uplifted reservoir which due to its uplift never became a real reservoir, not as a potential reservoir itself. In the surrounding areas similar small analogue subsurface structures were drilled and have produced moderate amounts of hydrocarbons.
  2. ^ van Dijk 2011.