+ 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 ~- 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.