Offshore Potential of the Shallow-Water Portion of Apache’s West Mediterranean Concession

By

Ashraf I. Ghaly¹, John R. Bedingfield², David W Phelps³, Mahmoud A/razik¹, David M. Allard²

(1) Ain Shams Uni, Cairo - Egypt, Egypt (2) Apache Egypt Companies, Houston, TX (3) Rise Universty Ph.d, Cairo - Egypt, Egypt

 The offshore portion of the West Mediterranean concession is located west of Alexandria in water depths less than 100 m. A 760 Km2 3D seismic survey was acquired January 2000 over a shallow-water portion of the concession. Pre-Stack Depth Migration was applied employing global tomography to construct the velocity model. The main play is an extension of the onshore Western Desert Cretaceous play. Primary objectives include Bahariya/Kharita clastics, fractured Alamein dolomite and Alam el Bueb sandstones. Jurassic source rocks are thought to be present and mature for oil in the basin to the north and west. Two wells have been drilled in the shallow-water portion of the concession. The Shaqiq-1X stopped at the base of the Tertiary section and is a dry hole. The Marakia-1X penetrated much of the Cretaceous section and recovered oil from the Alam el Bueb formation. The Marakia-1X oil is typed to Jurassic oils from the adjacent onshore oil fields. The main structures are northwest trending Late Cretaceous to Early Tertiary normal faults. An older east-west structural grain is also evident. The east-west grain is parallel to Lower Cretaceous and Jurassic-aged structures onshore, and is considered to be Early Cretaceous or Jurassic in the offshore as well. The interaction of the two structural tends defines several fault-dependent, 3-way dipping prospects. The potential for a “buried hill” play exists in the shallow marine portion of the concession. In the northern part of the shallow marine area Messinian and older unconformities cut deeply into the Cretacous section. The erosional surfaces define north-south trending canyons and intervening ridges which are projected north beyond the limits oh the shallow-marine 3D coverage.