When looking at the oil and gas fields in the Western Desert of Egypt, and then read this article from Simon Baer and colleagues at PGS, which describes how the narrow shelf in this part of western Egypt can potentially be linked to the onshore discovery trend, it is in a way a surprise to see that only now companies have started to firm this up.
As Zohr has probably started to decline, as well as many other mature gas fields onshore and in the Nile Delta, the timing was probably right for international companies to explore for gas in the country now, as the market is there and the gas is badly needed.
Alas, well Sidi-Barani-1 was drilled in the shelf area in 1976 already, but it is surely not on trend with the Western Desert finds. And Kiwi-1, drilled in 2010, targeted a different play altogether – Miocene sands – in the Herodotus basin, probably much younger than the reservoirs Exxon now found to be prospective in the Nefertari-1 well.
As Simon Baer further describes in the 2016 article, the most common reservoirs onshore are in Lower Cretaceous Alam El Bueib and the Jurassic Khatatba formations. The seismic line shown here, which is from the shelf area and was published in the GEO EXPRO article as well, shows these formations as well as a potential closure against a northwest-southeast trending fault that represents the general structural trend in the area.
Will Nefertari-1 be the starting shot for more exploration in the area? Possibly, but it must be added that at the same time as Exxon brought the good news, Chevron announced disappointing results at the Khendjer-1 well a little further to the west. Maybe stick to the Western Desert WSW-ENE trend a bit more?
And finally, is the well opening up a new play, as some media reported? Based on the literature we consulted, there could just as well be a chance that this well taps into the main play elements of the onshore Western Desert fields. If that is the case, there may be a long swath still to be explored. On the other hand, it would be equally interesting to know what the new play entails if it is indeed a new one. Time will tell.
