The geological composition of rifts in Sudan as related to oil and gas content

Abstract

Gradual increase in hydrocarbon production by the Saudi Arabia, Russia and the USA has led to the fact that today their share in the global production volume is about 42%, according to British Petroleum. At the same time, the market volume for small players, focused primarily on domestic demand and meeting the needs of their nearest neighbors, is falling proportionally. A striking example of this trend is the Republic of Sudan, on whose territory a small number of oil and gas fields are being developed, characterized by a very complex structure associated with rift sedimentary basins, which began to be studied in detail only a few years ago. The first comprehensive regional geological work began only at the end of 1974. As of today, all discovered oil reservoirs are located within rift zones, and the most promising one is the Muglad Basin, which contains eleven discovered oil fields connected with the terrigenous deposits of Upper Cretaceous and Miocene. Based on the study of seismic and core data, sequence stratigraphic and sedimentological models were built of the main depositional structures of the Muglad Basin, the potential was evaluated of the discovery of new hydrocarbon deposits. Keywords: rift valley; fields sedimentary complexes; Muglad Basin; Sudan; sequence stratigraphy.