Abstract The Sureste Basin of Mexico is a story of split exploration maturity, with more than 139 discoveries in the onshore and shallow-water area of the Sureste in a series of stacked prolific plays, but less than 12 exploration wildcat wells on the Campeche slope, in water depths greater than 500 m. Over 50% of the basin area lies in this under-explored deep-water Campeche slope, with future oil potential shown by the presence of wide seabed oil seepage indicating a regionally mature world-class source rock to be present. With the 2014 opening of Mexico's oil industry, basin-wide 3D seismic imaging of this under-explored deep-water extension to the Sureste Basin is now in the hands of international oil companies that hold substantial exploration well commitments over the next few years. This paper discusses the hydrocarbon play potential of both the classic Tertiary slope clastic reservoir systems as well as the significant Mesozoic carbonate reservoir potential for which there are fewer analogues outside of Mexico. Subsurface challenges originating from dry hole analysis relate to charge timing and deep charge focus, subsalt deep structural imaging, deep reservoir quality issues and uncertainty in column height prediction, given the high-relief nature of many undrilled salt related structures.

Abstract Since the onshore discovery of oil in the Eastern Desert in 1886, the petroleum industry in Egypt has discovered more than 15.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) of reserves. This paper uses an understanding of the tectono-stratigraphic history of each major basin, combined with drilling history and field-size distributions, to justify predicting that Egypt's future potential resource base will be twice what it is today. Major reserve replacement will come from expansion of existing petroleum plays into the Mediterranean Tertiary gas trends. Additional reserve growth will result from successes using 3-D seismic methods in deeper pool exploration in and around proven fields, and for new stratigraphic plays off-structure. Examples from the Western Desert, the Gulf of Suez, and the Mediterranean demonstrate this growth potential. More remote new exploration areas include the Komombo and other basins in Upper Egypt and the northern end of the Red Sea rift, both of which are under reevaluation by several international oil companies. Despite a relatively complex geologic history, the geologic framework of Egypt is highly suited for oil and gas exploration. It comprises eight major tectono-stratigraphic events: (1) Paleozoic craton, (2) Jurassic rifting, (3) Cretaceous passive margin, (4) Cretaceous Syrian arc deformation and foreland transgressions, (5) Oligocene-Miocene Gulf of Suez rifting, (6) Miocene Red Sea breakup, (7) the Messinian salinity crisis, and (8) Pliocene-Pleistocene delta progradation. Each of those events created multiple reservoir and seal combinations. Source rocks occur from the Paleozoic through to the Pliocene, and petroleum is produced from Precambrian through Pleistocene reservoirs.