David G Peace¹, Mike Johnson²

(1) NRSC Exploration Services, Farnborough, United Kingdom
(2) Spectrum Energy & Information Technology Ltd, Woking, Surrey, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT: New Hydrocarbon Occurences in the Eastern Mediterranean

" New Hydrocarbon Occurrences in the Eastern Mediterranean"

The offshore Eastern Mediterranean region from Egypt north to Southern Turkey is not well explored. The main activity being in the Nile Delta and more recently offshore Israel. Significant discoveries have been made in both areas over the last two years.

Earlier successful offshore oil seep detection work by NRSC in the greater Nile Delta region had suggested the presence of a deeper oil source further out into the Mediterranean, but still within reasonable drilling depths.

Subsequently NRSC has carried out a new oil seep study covering the entire Eastern Mediterranean region in conjunction with Spectrum EIT's regional seismic grid. This has enabled correlation of identified natural oil seeps with nearby seismic data to establish the presence of possible hydrocarbon migration pathways and any associated DHI features that might indicate the presence of active hydrocarbon systems

This paper shows the methodology of the study, outlines the regional structure and shows the type of oil seepage features identified. It will also show seismic examples of possible oil seepage migration routes seen in association with examples of typical lead structuring apparent in the area. Direct Hydrocarbon Indicator (DHI) features are seen associated with many lead structures providing an attractive incentive for future drilling activity in this newly emerging Eastern Mediterranean region.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90906©2001 AAPG Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado