Oil potentialities of West Esh El-Mallaha area, southern Gulf of Suez as deduced from well log data interpretation

Abstract

West Esh El-Mallaha area (WEEM) is situated at the southern onshore part of Gulf of Suez and extended to about 52 km 2 . The main objective of this article is to extract the most important petrophysical parameters of sedimentary sequence to evaluate and define the hydrocarbon potentiality in WEEM area using the available well log data suite. The lithology of each reservoir was detected by using a combination of different logs and different cross-plots including "Neutron-Density Cross-Plot" and" M-N Cross plot" respectively. Four wells were selected for the study (Tawoos-1, RE-4, RE-2 and RE-22) which represent most of the study area. The results of the interpretation indicated that pre-rift reservoirs lithology "Nubia, Matulla" are composed of coarse to fine-grained sandstone with fair to poor sorting. Shale inter-beds are common and some wells show a carbonate layer in the upper Nubia-A. The post-rift reservoir lithology "Nukhul Fm." is one of the chief reservoirs in our study area. Its main lithology is sandstone, limestone, dolomite and shale. The majority of points are distributed as carbonate (dolomite and limestone) with some of it back to the effect of clay minerals and calcareous cement. Different Cross Plots indicated the abundance of dolomite and limestone with minor occurrence of sandstone. The presence of high shale content in Rudies fm. shifted the point downward in M-N Cross plot. This reveals that the reservoir encountered is highly calcareous sandstone. WEEM area considered promising hydrocarbon potentiality, (especially Matulla consider oil producer zone from Tawoos-1 well, (Basement, Nubia, Matulla, and Nukhul clastics) consider oil producer zones from RE-2 well, (Matulla, Nubia) consider oil producer zone from R-4 well, and (Rudies) consider oil producer zone from RE-22 well.