Online Journal for E&P Geoscientists

Wood, Barry ¹; Zakariya, Ahmed ²; Abdel Hady, Ahmed ^*2
(1) Sea Dragon Energy Inc, Cairo, Egypt. (2) Dana Gas Egypt Ltd, Cairo, Egypt.

Southern Egypt has attracted only sporadic interest since the 1990’s with success finally arriving in 2007 with the drilling of Al Baraka-1 by Dana Gas and the discovery of the Al Baraka Field. However, without a solid database, the geology of this remote basin of Egypt remained little known.

Under a partnership with Sea Dragon Energy, a nine-well program was conducted between July 2010 and March 2011. A mandate of this program was to collect a large data set to firmly establish the subsurface geological framework. This paper presents findings of this campaign that dramatically reset the environment of deposition and the tectonic position of the Komombo Basin in northeast Africa, connecting it now with the Western Desert in contradiction to present perception that this basin is analogous to African interior basins to the south.

Two sequences, separated by an angular unconformity, can be distinguished; a basal early Cretaceous sequence lying on metamorphic basement and an early to late Cretaceous sequence above. Sedimentation terminated in the Santonian/Campanian coincident with the earliest development of the Red Sea. Massive erosion and back filling by the proto Nile River completed the sedimentary history of the area. The basal sequence consists of non-marine clastics deposited in a restricted environment while the overlying sequence consists of a basal non-marine section grading upward into coastal marine deposits. Both sequences have oil potential.

Facies types are confirmed by over 700 feet of core, detailed biostratigraphic work and an extensive collection of wire-line logs. Basal reservoirs (Hauterivian to Barremian) are entirely non-marine clastics. The overlying Albian to Cenomanian sections attain a thickness of up to 1500 feet and are composed of alternating shales and very fine to fine grained immature sandstones, the sands displaying multiple facies types, from tidal channels and palaeosols to sand shoals (bars) exhibiting small scale cross bedding, shale drapes and flaser bedding. Tidal influence is pervasive confirming the coastal position of the sands in the basin.

Structurally, field reservoirs are controlled by two main extensional fault sets, a dominant northwest by southeast set parallel to the main bounding fault system and a subsidiary set trending north-south. A third east-west set is present but no dominant.

This new work will change exploration strategy with respect to Upper Egypt’s hydrocarbon potentiality.