The Red Sea Basin Province: Sudr-Nubia(!) and Maqna(!) Petroleum Systems

Abstract

FOREWORDThis report is a product of the World Energy Project of the U.S. Geological Survey, in which the world has been divided into 8 regions and 937 geologic provinces for purposes of assessment of global oil and gas resources (Klett and others, 1997). These provinces have been ranked according to the discovered petroleum volumes within each; highranking provinces (76 "priority" provinces exclusive of the U.S.) and others with varying types and degrees of intrigue (26 "boutique" provinces exclusive of the U.S.) were chosen for appraisal of oil and gas resources. The petroleum geology of these non-U.S. priority and boutique provinces are described in this series of reports. A detailed report containing the assessment results for all provinces will be available separately.The Total Petroleum System concept is the basis for this assessment. A total petroleum system includes the essential elements and processes, as well as all genetically related hydrocarbons that occur in petroleum shows, seeps and accumulations (discovered and undiscovered), whose provenance is a pod or related pods of mature source rock (concept modified from Magoon and Dow, 1994). The minimum petroleum system is that portion of the total petroleum system for which the presence of essential elements and processes has been proved. The assessment unit is a mappable volume of rock within the total petroleum system, sufficiently homogeneous in terms of geology, exploration strategy and risk characteristics to constitute a single population with respect to criteria used for the chosen methodology of resource assessment. Assessment units are considered established if they contain more than 13 fields, frontier if they contain 1-13 fields and hypothetical if they contain no fields.A unique, eight-digit numeric code identifies each assessment unit with respect to region, province, and petroleum system. The first digit is the region number, the next three digits the province number, the next two digits the total petroleum system number, and the final two digits the assessment unit number. The codes for the regions and provinces were established, listed and mapped in

The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Basins

“…The nature and thickness of the pre-rift strata influenced the composition of the syn-rift fill, the geometry of the initial extensional faulting, and the large-scale morphology of the rift sub-basins. Pre-rift strata were also critical in forming several of the proven hydrocarbon systems of the basin (reviewed in Patton et al, 1994;Lindquist, 1998).…”

Source Rock Depositional Environment and Maturation Assessment Dependent C7 Light Hydrocarbons from Crude Oils in the Gulf of Suez, Egypt

“…Upper Cretaceous to Eocene marine carbonate source rocks produce gammacerane rich oil trapped in prerift reservoir rocks. Middle Miocene shale source rocks produce oleanane-rich oils and wet gases trapped primarily in Miocene reservoirs (Lindquist, 1998). The major oil-prone source rock in the Gulf of Suez is the prerift Brown Limestone Formation (Alsharhan and Salah, 1997).…”

Total Organic Carbon Enrichment and Source Rock Evaluation of the Lower Miocene Rocks Based on Well Logs: October Oil Field, Gulf of Suez-Egypt

“…Good hydrocarbon source rocks must contain organic matter higher than 1% (wt% TOC). These organic materials could only generate hydrocarbons, if they reach a level of thermal maturation high enough to generate and expel comercial quantities of oil and/or gas [8].…”

“…He also found that the time of oil expulsion and migration postdates the deposition of South Gharib Formation, which represents the seal rock of the Miocene reservoirs. In the complied report of the US Geological Survey (world energy project), Lindquist [8] had clarified that two major oil sources for the hydrocarbons in the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez were indicated. The first is the Campanian Sudr (Brown/Dawi) source rocks, while the second is the Middle Miocene Maqna source rocks.…”