HGS International Dinner – Oligocene-Miocene Rifting and its Influence on Siliciclastic Reservoir Distribution and Exploration in the Gulf of Suez, Clues from Recent Sub-surface Analysis, Eastern Desert, Egypt

Lynx will have a ‘Vendor Corner’ booth at the forthcoming HGS International Dinner talk on Egypt to be given by Sharma Dronamraju on Monday 15th February. The talk is focussed on siliclastic reservoir distribution in the Gulf of Suez, drawing on an analysis of data obtained through EOR work on the Yusr field in the Eastern Desert.

The venue for the talk and dinner is the Westchase Hilton, at 9999 Westheimer.

Exploration opportunities in Egypt are presented in several discrete play types across its key basinal provinces. Some of the more prolific plays, such as the Lower Cretaceous Bahariya Sandstones of the Western Desert, and Oligo-Miocene to Plio-Pleistocene sandstones of the Nile Delta province, are fairly well established and continue to provide significant drilling success rates, with the recent Eni Zohr discovery (30 TCF) standing out as a world class gas field. Many other play opportunities are yet under-explored in frontier areas, and known oil accumulations in non-primary targets e.g. early Tertiary limestones in the Western Desert remain under-exploited.

The Gulf of Suez is the site of Egypt’s first oil discovery back in 1886, and to date this classic rift basin province has yielded over 130 field discoveries. Its producing fields are predominantly uplifted, pre-Miocene tilted fault blocks within which clastic and carbonate reservoirs are sealed by overlying Miocene shales and evaporites, or broad anticlinal flexures, containing Miocene clastic reservoirs formed over the uplifted blocks by differential compaction and subsidence. These fields are particularly attractive from the production standpoint, being characterised by good reservoir parameters, long oil columns, stacked pays, good quality crude and shallow water depths. A marked improvement in the technical understanding of the petroleum geology and geophysics of the basin has resulted from the refinement of the geologic models and recent improvements in seismic data quality which have improved resolution beneath the evaporites, leading to a better understanding of the distribution of pre-salt reservoirs and the recognition of a wide variety of trapping mechanisms in structural, paleogeomorphic and stratigraphic undrilled leads providing opportunities for future discoveries.

The entire exploration potential of Egypt is detailed in a comprehensive GIS-based ‘Exploration Adviser’ study produced by Lynx and partners Fairway Exploration.

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