THE PETROLEUM POTENTIAL OF EGYPT

摘要

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.