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 FRANCE
Southern Europe Europe
Oil production in France has seen two peaks - one around
1965 and one in 1988. Most of the early oil in France came from the
Aquitaine basin in the SW derived from Lower Cretaceous and Upper
Jurassic reservoirs.
 Up
to the mid 1980s this area had produced three quarters of production. In
1958 the first oil in the other productive area - the Paris basin - was
discovered. A series of small finds were made through the 1960s and 70s,
however, it was new discoveries of oil in the early 1980s, especially in
Triassic reservoirs, that caused the second peak.
In particular in 1982 Triton discovered the Jurassic
Villeperdue field with reserves of 50 mm Bbls whilst Essorep discovered
the Upper Triassic Chaunoy field in 1983, the largest field in the
basin. Just under half of France’s oil comes from the Aquitaine
basin and just over half from the Paris basin. Gas mainly comes from
Aquitaine.
 There is no oil production offshore. Several discoveries
have been made in shallow water wells in the offshore part of the
Aquitaine basin but none have been of a sufficient size to justify
development. The geology appears unfavourable for significant oil or gas
discoveries due to a lack of source rocks.
The merger of Total, Fina and Elf created the world’s
fourth largest oil company and consolidated France’s position in the
global oil and gas industry.
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