New and emerging plays in the Eastern Mediterranean: an introduction

Abstract

The Mediterranean Sea, as its name implies, lies between the landmasses of Europe, Middle East, and Africa. It is vast and diverse, and has a rich and complicated geological history that is still not fully understood. Hydrocarbons have been found and used on the shores of the Mediterranean for millennia. Oil and gas exploration and production have been moving progressively offshore, and several regions such as the Adriatic Sea, the Pelagian basin offshore Libya and Tunisia, and the offshore Nile delta have had established production for several decades (Fig. 1). But large parts of the Mediterranean, in particular its deep water areas, remain sparsely explored. In the last few years, the situation has been changing. Strong demand for hydrocarbons and rising oil and gas prices, combined with the improved technical capabilities for sub-salt seismic imaging and deep-water drilling, have led to renewed exploration interest in the Mediterranean offshore. Success in the Levant basin and the discovery of condensate in the pre-Messinian section offshore Egypt have brought the region into the spotlight. Applications of play types proven in other regions and improved seismic imaging of the deeper, sub-Messinian geology are prompting a reassessment of the oil and gas prospectivity of the region. Fig. 1. Map of the Eastern Mediterranean showing the basin locations and oil and gas discoveries. A Geological Society conference with the theme ‘New and Emerging Plays in the Eastern Mediterranean‘ took place in London from 23–25 February 2011. It brought together presenters and delegates from oil and gas companies, research institutes, government, seismic contractors, and academia. A selection of the material presented has been captured as peer-reviewed papers that appear in this thematic set. Although not all the material presented could be rendered into hard copy because of proprietary sensitivity, we believe that this set comprises a representative sample of …