PETROLEUM GEOLOGICAL FEATURES AND EXPLORATION POTENTIAL OF THE NILE DELTA BASIN

The Nile Delta Basin has been put under exploration for more than 60 years. With the deepening of exploration and drilling activities, new topics and new frontiers are constantly emerging, showing good exploration prospect. Though the Nile Delta Basin is a world class oil and gas rich area, for some reasons, Chinese oil companies have rarely involved in the study of the basin, and rarely published relevant literatures. Through a general review of the characteristics of tectonic evolution and sedimentary filling history, as well as source rocks, reservoirs and other petroleum geological conditions, we analyzed in this paper the hydrocarbon accumulation characteristics and exploration potential of the Nile Delta Basin. Combined with present exploration situation, future exploration potential and exploration direction of the Basin are also discussed. The shallow water area, because of its high exploration degree, well developed infrastructure and low economic threshold, is the best area for rolling exploration. In the medium-deep and deep water area, however, the Oligocene is the main potential play to explore medium and large gas fields for the next decade; and in the ultra-deep water area, Miocene and Pliocene plays possess big potential for large biogenic gas discoveries.