The Pripyat Trough is the only oil and gas-bearing region in Belarus where oil has been produced for over 40 years now. The prevailing part of the oil reserves (93%) is confined to deposits represented by carbonate reservoirs. Such deposits feature Upper Devonian limestone and dolomites, mainly of massive texture, with varying degrees of cavern and fracture porosity. Most deposits are divided by tectonic abnormalities into separate blocks. At the beginning of prospecting in Belarus, major fields in the region were discovered; the subsequently detected deposits are relatively small, their development are often insufficiently profitable or not profitable at all. In most deposits, the pressure communication with the edge water zone is constrained or absent altogether which complicates their development. By examining the core samples and analyzing the geophysical and production data the bed-by-bed and zonal heterogeneity of deposits in terms of porosity and permeability was determined. The high geological heterogeneity of the productive formations, the complex structure of the storage volume of reservoirs predetermine the uneven reserve recovery in terms of both the area and the profile of deposits.

At present one of the main tasks is to involve in the development of hard-to-recover oil reserves confined to low-permeability carbonate reservoirs where more than 50% of the remaining recoverable reserves of hydrocarbons are concentrated and to involve the hydrocarbon reserves concentrated in carbonate and terrigenous half-reservoirs of Belarus.

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