Underexplored Jurassic Rift Sub-basins in Northwestern Desert of Egypt

Abstract

The Northwestern Desert is the most prolific hydrocarbon province in Egypt with multiple petroleum systems. The majority of oil and gas fields in that province incorporate multiple productive reservoirs from Paleozoic to Eocene age. The Jurassic petroleum system comprises one of the most interesting source rock system for the exploration activities in the area, with proved plays s in the Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous. Understanding the nature and distribution of the Jurassic source rock as well as the Jurassic reservoir levels in the light of the presented tectono-stratigraphic model is of high valua in exploring further for Jurassic Hc volumes. The Jurassic rifting of Northwestern Desert is trending along ENEWNW toNNE SSW faults, which created a series of half grabens with dimensions of 30–40 Km in width and more than 100 Km in length which compares in size with the Gulf of Suez rift. The depth and the poor seismic imaging represent key challenges for unraveling the tectono-stratigraphy of the Jurassic rocks =. However, better imaging is localized in settings where the overburden of the Cretaceous to Tertiary section is truncated due to tectonic inversion. Studying of the subsurface geological, geochemical and geophysical data of these structurally inverted areas is essential to understand and unlock the deeply buried settings. The study results suggest a new tectono-stratigraphic model for the Jurassic rocks in which the source rock distribution can be understood in the context of rift basin linked half grabens, where source rock facies is richer in the fault bound basin depocentres. The current model helps ino further unlocking more of the underexplored Jurassic basins and sub-basins that were originally condemned due to lack of source rock facies and / or sufficient maturity levels.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90194 © 2014 International Conference & Exhibition, Istanbul, Turkey, September 14-17, 2014