oa West Esh El Mallaha Concession Fields, Pre- and Syn-Rift Multi-Oil-Bearing Reservoirs as a Structural and Stratigraphic Model in the Eastern Desert Onshore Southern Gulf of Suez Rift Province, Egypt

The Gulf of Suez is a failed extensional rift basin. Rifting initiated during Early Miocene time and<br>reached its peak at the end of Burdigalian. Three major fault trends are observed in the Gulf of Suez;<br>rift parallel or clysmic. North oblique and rift orthogonal cross elements. The Gulf of Suez rift is divided<br>into three dip provinces separated by two transfer zones. Each dip province has its own geologic<br>characteristics which makes the hydrocarbon trapping mechanisms are different from one province to<br>another. The southern province is dominated by SW dipping pre-rift sequences and characterized from<br>the central and northern parts by more severe extension, faults are more frequent, smaller structural<br>block size, thicker sand reservoir accumulations during in the Miocene syn-rift sequences, thinner prerift<br>sequences and well developed Miocene salt diapers. As a result, the southern GOS province is more<br>favorable for Miocene and Pre-Miocene (including the Basement rocks) hydrocarbon traps. West Esh El<br>Mallaha concession has oil production from three separate structural closures (Tanan-Tawoos, Rabeh<br>and East Rabeh). Its total area is 52 km square with 45 wells have been drilled in the concession.<br>The structural style of West Esh El Mallaha fields are dominated by tilted fault blocks bounded by NWSE<br>oriented normal, down to the northeast faults and dissected by oblique and orthogonal faults.<br>Reservoirs range in age from Cretaceous to Miocene.<br>The first commercial hydrocarbon in West Esh El Mallaha concession was discovered by Coplex in 1997<br>from Rabeh field. The discovered oil was placed on production on February 1998. Currently, the West<br>Esh El Mallaha concession fields are operating by LUKOIL/ESHPETCO joint venture company. The<br>concession cumulative oil production as of June, 2009 is 27.5 MMB, of which 90% is produced from Pre<br>-Miocene Nubia and Matulla Fms and the remaining 10% from the Miocene reservoirs Nukhul and Rudeis.