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Introduction to Exploration in the
Gulf of Suez
James W. Vanderbeek
Friday Harbor, Washington, US.A
This review of the geology and hydrocarbon
potential of the Gulf of Suez makes sense on two
counts. First, a knowledge of rifts is essential to an
understanding of the tectonics of the earth and sec-
ond, hydrocarbon exploration and production in the
gulf have been highly successful producing a vast
amount of subsurface geological data. This has great-
ly improved the geologic understanding of the Gulf
of Suez rift basin.
Historically, from a petroleum standpoint, the ear-
liest Egyptians no doubt used tar from seeps to caulk
boats, grease wagon wheels, etc. The presence of fault
controlled seeps, onshore, Jed to the current offshore
petroleum exploration efforts.
Much has been learned about rift behavior during
exploration of the Gulf of Suez and many pet theories
have been discarded and others developed during
the process. Strike slip movement, originally thought
to be 50-80 mi, is now considered to be insignificant.
Until quite recently, source rocks were considered
to be the Miocene Globigerina marls whose presence
is restricted to the rift. Modern studies have shown
that instead the dominant oil source is the Late
Cretaceous (Campanian) “Brown Limestone” Member
of the Sudr Formation. This formation is regionally
extensive and rifting had no depositional effect other
than to cause it to be buried deeply enough to reach
thermal maturit
Several major cycles of hydrocarbon exploration
have occurred as follows:
Just south of Gebel Zeit (which means “oil moun-
tain’) on the western shore near the mouth of the
gulf, oil was found in 1886 on the Gemsa Peninsula
by the Egyptian Oil Trust Company after 39 years of
surface mapping (Abdine and Kanes, 1983), The field
‘was put into production in 1911. The total production
from Gemsa field, which was abandoned more than
60 years ago, was about 1.3 million bbl from Miocene
dolomitic reefal limestones, In 1913, Hurghada field
was the first major discovery and has produced
about 48 million bbl. The reservoirs in this fault block
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trap have been Miocene lagoonal dolomites and
Carboniferous sandstones usually referred to as
“Nubian.”
The next major oil discovery was by Anglo-
Egyptian, a Shell affiliate, in 1938 at the Ras Ghareb
on the western shore about 100 mi south of Suez. Ras
Ghareb field, small in areal extent but with 700 ft of
Nubian sandstone reservoir, has turned out to be one
of the richest fields in the world on a per acre basis
with 250 MMBO within a 250-300 acre area.
In 1945, oil was found in the northeastern part of
the rift by Mobil at the Sudr and Asl fields. Then, in
1950-1952, a group of California independents com-
menced exploration in the Belayim area 100 mi south
of Suez on the eastem shore of the gulf. Their efforts
led to the discovery of a number of significant fields.
The first offshore seismic line was shot in 1955 by
Cope (now Petrobel) and, by the mid 1950s, they and
their partners Agip and Petrofina had seismically
mapped several large structural prospects immediate-
ly offshore from the Belayim field production. This led
to the discovery of the Belayim Marine field in 1961
The next major producing area to be found was at
EI Morgan in the south central part of the gulf in 1965
as a result of aeromagnetic and reflection seismic sur-
veys. Although many students of Red Sea rifting pre-
dicted that there would be no cil in the offshore Gulf
of Suez because structures such as Morgan represeni-
ed volcanic activity similar to that along the axis of
the Red Sea where oceanic crust is being formed, this
successful exploration effort was the result of a joint
project of EGPC and Amoco, In 1970, El Morgan field
was producing at a peak rate of 300 MBOPD.
Ultimate reserves are estimated to be 700 million bbl
(Abdine and Kanes, 1983) making it the largest field
in the rift. Together, El Morgan, July, and Ramadan
fields account for 39% of the oil reserves in Egypt
(Abdine et al., 1992.) These discoveries established
the Gulf of Suez rift as a prolific oil province which
led to multiple subsequent discoveries establishing
Egypt asa net oil exporting nation.8 Vanderbeek
REFERENCES CITED
‘Abdine, S., and W. Kanes, 1983, Egyptian exploration,
background, and future potential: Oil and Gas
Journal, Aug. 29, p. 71-72.
Abdine, AS., et al., 1992, Ramadan Field—Egypt,
Gulf of Suez Basin, in N. Foster and E.A.
Beaumont, eds., AAPG Treatise of Petroleum
Geology Atlas of Oil and Gas Fields—Structural
‘Traps VI, p. 113-139.
Tiratsoo, E.N., 1984, Oilfields of the world
Beaconsfield, England, Scientific Press, 392 pp.