Title: Modelling oil formation and migration in the southern part of the Suez rift, Egypt
Abstract: Abstract In order to improve the understanding of the formation and occurrence of hydrocarbons in the Suez sedimentary basin, the whole chain of geological processes leading to the accumulation of oil is reconstructed by the use of geological mathematical models. At first, a geodynamic model of rift formation considering the mantellic convection is used to compute the variations of heat flow through time. A second step is the reconstruction of temperature through time for each point of the basin. This is achieved by a model of heat transfer across the sediments, that makes use of the previously computed heat flows. Finally, the paleotemperatures are used in a third mathematical model that represents the formation and migration of hydrocarbons in two dimensions. The amounts of oil generated are computed from a kinetic model and the migration of oil is computed from the Darcy's law, extended to the polyphasic oil/water flows by the consideration of relative permeabilities. These models have been applied to a typical SW-NE cross-section in the southern part of the Suez rift (Shoab-Ali structure), using literature data. As computed by the model, the formation of hydrocarbons became important 6 Myr B.P. The present depth of oil formation is found to be around 3000 m deep, in good agreement with published data. The computed volume of oil accumulated at the top of the structure (280 million m3) is consistent with the estimation of the oil in place (165 million m3), the difference being explained by the uncertainties on the input data. The parameters that have the greatest influence on oil formation and migration are the paleotemperatures, the petroleum potentials and the assumed geometry of the cross-section. The value of our mathematical models in such examples is that they help to understand the process of oil accumulation in the basin. Afterwards, they make possible to select the parameters favorable to the accumulation of important quantities of oil, or to make quantitative predictions concerning undrilled areas in the vicinity of schematic cross-section. Thus they are very useful tools in oil exploration.
Publication Year: 1986
Publication Date: 1986-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 19
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