Kuwait has proven conventional oil reserves of about 100 billion barrels which makes it one of the major oil-producing countries worldwide. Most of this reserve is found in Cretaceous and Jurassic with minor quantities in the Paleogene sedimentary successions. Most hydrocarbon production comes from the siliciclastic Burgan Formation which is the most important reservoir in Kuwait. The Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous exhibit good quality source rocks that charged most of the hydrocarbon reservoirs in Kuwait and entered the oil window in Late Cretaceous to Eocene. Most of the hydrocarbon is trapped in very gentle four-way closure structures that are related to the deep-seated fault system of the Arabian Peninsula such as Khurais-Burgan Anticline. Hydrocarbon reservoirs in Kuwait are sealed and capped mainly by shale rocks and to a less extent by evaporites. In the last 15 years, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) displayed interest in commercially exploiting unconventional hydrocarbon reserves and started laying significant emphasis on the exploration and development of unconventional resources. The aim of this work is to summarize the different petroleum systems of Kuwait including the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic systems.

Despite the surface geology of Kuwait appears to be scarce and most of the country is covered with Quaternary deposits except for a few outcrops of Oligo-Miocene to Pleistocene age, the subsurface geology of Kuwait is quite unique and astonishing. The discovery of hydrocarbon in Kuwait at the beginning of the last century helped geologists to better understand the structural geology of Kuwait especially by utilizing geophysical methods such as potential field methods (e.g., gravity and magnetic) and seismic reflection. Being part of the Arabian Peninsula, the structural geology of Kuwait shares many of the Arabian Peninsula structural trends. The dominant N-S trending structures of the Arabian Plate are manifested in the Kuwait Arch which is one of the major structures of the country where many of the oil and gas oil fields are associated with. Other dominant structural trends of the Arabian Plate such as NE-SW and NW–SE are resembled in Kuwait as Jal Az-Zor and Dibdibah Trough, respectively. Paleo- and in-situ stress analysis is an important subject for oil and gas exploration, and many studies have been commissioned to better understand them in most of the Kuwaiti fields. The present-day in-situ stress in Kuwait is oriented NE-SW resembling the current tectonic setting of the region due to the collision of the Arabian Plate with the Eurasia Plate since the Oligocene. This chapter will present a thorough review of the previous studies discussing the surface and subsurface structural geology of Kuwait.

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