Comprehensive study on the conventional petroleum system of the Masilah oilfields, Sayun-Masilah Basin, Yemen

Abstract

The Masilah oilfields are rich-oil provinces in the Sayun-Masilah Basin. The petroleum system including essential elements and processes is a very important for understanding and development of oilfield to further explore hydrocarbons in the whole basin. Integrated geochemical, geological, petrological and petrophysical analyses were performed on the source and reservoir rocks in the Masilah oilfields to gives information about the complete petroleum system. The Masilah oilfields filled with syn- and post-rift sediments, including a self-contained source-reservoir system. The geochemical results indicate that the organic-rich shales of the Madbi Formation are considered as oil-source rocks, with high total organic carbon content of more than 5.0 wt% TOC and oil-prone kerogen Types II and I. The Madbi shales are currently characterized by thermally mature level, within the oil generation window. Geochemical biomarker correlations of oil-source rock indicate that there is a genetic link between the oils and the Late Jurassic Madbi shale source rock in the Masilah oilfields. Therefore, the geochemical characteristics of the Madbi source rock have been collaborated into basin models and illustrate that the Madbi source rock had passed the peak-oil generation window during the Late Cretaceous to present-day and that large amounts of oil were generated. The generated oil was expelled and migrated to the overlain Early Cretaceous Qishn clastic reservoir rocks through faults during the Oligocene-Middle Miocene. The oil was then accumulated and trapped into horst and tilted fault blocks that initial formed during the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous rifting.