The petroleum potential of Egypt

Since the onshore discovery of oil on the Eastern Desert in 1886, the petroleum industry has developed proven reserves of 14.53 BBOE. This paper utilizes an understanding of the tectono-stratigraphic history of each major basin, drilling history and field size distributions to justify the potential to double Egypt's resource base in the forthcoming decades. Major reserve replacement will come from petroleum play expansion into the Mediterranean offshore Tertiary gas trends. Additional reserve growth will result from further successes using 3D seismic, deeper pool exploration in and around proven fields, and new stratigraphic play development off-structure. Examples from the Western Desert, the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean will demonstrate this growth potential. More remote new exploration areas include the Komobo and other basins in Upper Egypt and the northern end of the Red Sea rift, both of which are currently under re-evaluation by a number of international oil companies. The geological framework of Egypt is ideal for oil and gas exploration. It consists of eight major tectono-stratigraphic events: 1) Paleozoic craton 2) Jurassic rifting, 3) Cretaceous passive margin, 4) Syrian arc deformation and transgression 5) Gulf of Suez rifting 6) Red Sea breakup 7) the Messinian crisis and 8) Plio-Pleistocene delta progradation. Each of these events has created multiple reservoir and seal combinations. Source rocks occur from Paleozoic through Pliocene strata and proven reservoirs are producing from Pre-Cambrian through Pleistocene age strata.