Hydrocarbons in the Mediterranean Rim Countries

By

 Hans G. Babies¹, Hilmar Rempel¹

(1) BGR, Hanover, Germany

 The poster should give an overview of the Mediterranean littoral countries regarding the hydrocarbon environment, the differences of the energy-deficient Mediterranean Europe and the hydrocarbon-rich North Africa/Near East. As regards hydrocarbon reserves, production and consumption the countries around the Mediterranean Sea belong to an important economic area. Their combined share of world hydrocarbon resources is in the range of 2 % and 4 %, concerning world reserves at about 4 %. The common reserves of crude oil and condensate of the Mediterranean countries reached nearly 50 billion bbl, the natural gas reserves ca. 8,000 billion m3. In 2001 the Mediterranean countries produced more than 4 million b/d of crude oil and condensate and 131.8 billion m3 of natural gas. Libya, Algeria and Egypt are the dominating oil producers while the main gas producers are Algeria, Italy and Egypt. The distribution according share of area, population, consumption, production, reserves and resources is different between European and North Africa/Near East countries. The tectono-sedimentary framework of the Mediterranean region is widely described by different authors The petroleum systems obtain a wide stratigraphic range from Silurian to Oligocene-Miocene times. The pipeline network for oil and gas in the European part of the region is well developed, thus the Mediterranean region is connected with sources in the North Sea, Russia, the Middle East and North Africa.