PETROLEUM

PROVINCES IN
EGYPT

 Petroleum Provinces in Egypt includes:

1-The Gulf of Suez
2-The Northern Western Desert
3-The Nile Delta (on shore and off shore)
4- Newly explored areas, Upper Egypt ( mainly
Komombo basin)

1- North Western
Desert Province

North Western Desert Province

There are two main groups of tectonic movements:
1-From the Paleozoic to late Jurassic sediments show a
strong E-W tectonic trend
2-the late Jurassic to early Cretaceous structural stage.
Sedimentary patterns from late Jurassic to Early Tertiary
appear to have influenced by two primarly tectonic forces
related to the Tethyan plate tectonics:
1- The sinistral shear during the late Jurassic to Early
Cretaceous
2- The dextral shear during the late Cretaceous to
Paleocene time

 Dextral shear was partially accompanied by

north-south or north-north west/south-south
east compressive forces.
The destruction of paleotethys was accompanied
by the opening up of Neotethys.
The Sinistral shear form a left lateral megashear
between Laurasia and Europe result in two main
tectonic elements:
1-west-northwest trending folds with
associated thrust faults.
2-east-northeast trending strike-slip faults with
left lateral motion.

Abu Gharadig Basin

Abu Gharadig basin can be looked up on as arift
basin bounded on the north and south by two
right-lateral shears and from east and west by
northwest trending normal faults.

 Rift grabens in northern Egypt are oriented

perpendicular to the published divergent plate
vectors between the African and European
plates.
The direction of other Jurassic rift systems
across northern Africa may reflect inherited
trends from a pre-Hercynian Paleozoic
structural grain.
Syrian Arc-related structural trends form the
bulk of the productive traps discovered in the
Western Desert.

2-The Gulf ofSuez Red Sea

Province

The Gulf of Suez Province

The Gulf of Suez is an extensional rift that
comprises anorth west trending marine basin.
That rift intiated in Oligocene by normal faulting
and dyke injection in the form of half Grabben
with active horizontal extension, more thining of
earth crust due to the rotation of blocks.
The rift was developed in Miocene.
The Gulf of Suez rifting and Red Sea breakup set
up ideal petroleum systems in the Gulf of Suez
and, potentially, in the Red Sea.

 The Suez rift is considered to be the right

lateral component of the two complementary
shear fractures of Suez and Aqaba that
resulted from anorthwesterly horizontal
compression .

 The Gulf of Suez model shows reversal of

regional dip for the tilted blocks along different
parts of the rift and separated by
accommodation zone.
The northern and southern province is
characterized by regional southwest dip, but
the central province is characterized by
northeast dip.
It is expected that the oil type may vary from
one basin to the other depending on the rate
of rifting in various parts of the Gulf.

 An idealized rift model and schematic petroleum

system model illustrate some of the major
Miocene synrift traps of the Gulf of Suez
The largest fields, such as Belayim Marine,
Morgan, and July fields, are rotated fault blocks
against sealing shales or evaporites.
Gulf of Suez basin is exceptionally difficult to
explore seismically, with severe multiples
masking real structural and stratigraphic
signatures.

Red Sea Province

The Red Sea breakup phase was initiated by the
development of the Gulf of Aqaba.
The structural style and proven petroleum system
of the Gulf of Suez should continue southward
into the Red Sea, although the dominant
petroleum product is likely to be gas.
As in the Gulf of Suez, significant future
discoveries may be made.

Nile Delta,
Mediterranean,
and North Sinai

3- Nile Delta, Mediterranean

Compressional deformation in the Nile Delta area
created wide uplifted arches and local strike-slip
grabens as following:
1- a belt of compressional folds extend
regionally from Sinai to Western Desert
(Cretaceous- Eocene).
2- uplift, rifting, and transform faulting occurred in
late Oligocene to Miocene in the Gulf of Suez
Red sea area, and affect eastern delta (off
shore).

 In Nile Delta, the structural event caused

seaward progradation of large deltas and
associated turbidite deposits.
Favorable geologic conditions created by the
Messinian crisis and Pliocene deltaic
progradation tectono-stratigraphic events set
up the big plays.

Figure 2. Schematic geologic cross section of the Nile Delta Basin Province illustrating the
geologic definition of three of the four assessment units (AU) in this study (dotted red lines):
Nile Margin Reservoir AU, Nile Cone AU, and Eratosthenes Seamount AU. The fourth AU,
Mediterranean Ridge, is out of the plane of the cross section. Modified from Barber (1981) and
Abdel Aal and others (2000). Location of projected section shown in figure 1. 1, Miocene (postMessinian) and Pliocene-Quaternary; 2, Messinian Salt; 3, Miocene (pre-Messinian); 4,
Paleogene-Cretaceous; 5, hypothesized pre-Cretaceous; 6, Eratosthenes Seamount. USGS image.

North Sinai Province

The North Sinai province occurs south of the
Pliocene structuring limit, and drilling has
been targeted on Oligocene and older
structural plays which represent
northeastward extensions of Syrian Arc
structures common to the Western Desert.
The North Sinai has had very limited
exploratory success, with follow-up offsets to
initial discoveries being unsuccessful.

Upper Egypt

4- Upper Egypt
The first attention for the possibility of
petroleum occurrence in Upper Egypt was in
1984 by M. Nagati who supposed the
presence of Aulacogene in Upper Egypt. He
supposed a possible Mesozoic rift acted by
triple junction as seen in the following figure:

From Nagati (1984

 KOMOMBO CONCESSIONS in Upper

Egypt can be subdivided into three
main blocks; East Komombo, West
Komombo (WKO), and Komombo
Basin.

1-East Komombo Block

Two wells, Namer-1 and, SET-1 were drilled,
BUT
No hydrocarbons were encountered in the
Cretaceous and Jurassic sands.

2- Komombo Basin

Al Baraka Field

3- West Komombo

7 Nov. 2010