An Investigation on Hydrocarbon Indicators in The Nile Delta
By
Refaat Zaki1, Abdel Rahman Morsi2, Stefano Volterrani3
(1) Centurion Petroleum Corporation, Cairo, Egypt (2) Centurion Petroleum Corporation, (3) WesternGeco, Cairo, Egypt
Significant gas reserves were discovered in the sedimentary section of the Nile Delta of Egypt. Gas bearing sands of different depositional systems were encountered in the Miocene and Pliocene sediments. Seismic amplitude anomalies have been associated with the Upper Paleocene deltaic sands of El Wastani formation, the Middle and Lower Paleocene sands of Kafr El Sheikh formation, the Upper Miocene fluvial channel sands of the Abu Madi formation, and the deep sand beds encountered in the steep dipping tilted fault blocks of Sidi Salim and Qantara/Teneh formations of Middle and Lower Miocene age.
This paper addresses the validity of seismic direct hydrocarbon indicators
for the gas bearing sands of the Nile Delta. The data were processed using high
resolution, well
log
data guided techniques. Several 2D dynamite lines and data
from five wells were re-processed.
Well
log
data was optimally edited through an
integrated
log
analysis
routine. The seismic processing
sequence
and the
processing parameters were optimized by using ‘
Well
Driven Seismic Processing’.
The seismic resolution was maximized through a calibrated processing
sequence
,
including post-stack space adaptive wavelet processing and inversion. Pre- and
post stack seismic attributes were compared for discriminating between high
seismic amplitudes due to hydrocarbon occurrence and lithological variations.
This study highlights the possibility of having significant hydrocarbon reserves in the on-shore Nile Delta that have not yet been discovered.