Anaconda lists very many examples of indisputably abiotic oil now in production from the mother cracks below all sedimentary scenario:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2150&start=450#p52319Add to that Libya, as described by Dr. Talaat K. Barsoum, September 20, 2011(and you know what happened to Libya's leader, Gaddafi, days later, at the hands of arab-supremacist racist misogynists who can be expected to pull back $60 bil in oil money on deposit earmarked for African development!):
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=58511&sid=059c66f406a4ceb5f1c043abc66c4c11#p58318http://pgc.lyellcollection.org/content/7/673.fullby J Craig - 2010 - Related articles
In addition, oil is produced from fractured granitic basement and overlying 'basal ... Seismic section through the central Kufra Basin, SE Libya showing a potential remnant ...... Bertello F.,; Barsoum K
Barsoum mostly pdf's:
Recent New Discoveries as a Result of Better Understanding the Factors Controlling Hydrocarbon Accumulation in the Sirt Basin, Libya and Future Potential, by Talaat K. Barsoum
http://www.targetexploration.com/MENA11.pdf (sorry, PDF)
Middle East & North Africa
MENA 2011 Oil & Gas Conference
The 9th Middle East and North Africa Oil and Gas Conference
19 & 20 September 2011
The Imperial College, 180 Queens Gate, London SW7
Sep 20, 2011 – The 9th Middle East and North Africa Oil and Gas Conference ... Hydrocarbon Accumulations
in Basement Reservoirs of Sirt Basin, Libya ... Mr. T. Barsoum, TKConsultants
Dr. Talaat Barsoum, T.K. Barsoum, TKConsultants, UK, oil in Libyan basement rock
http://www.maghreb-es.ucl.ac.uk/news/Infracam_abstracts_2006.pdf (2006, PDF)
Importance of Basement for Hydrocarbon
Entrapment and the Future Potential in the Sirt Basin, Libya
HYDROCARBON ACCUMULTIONS IN THE INFRACAMBRIAN
RESERVOIRS, AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BASEMENT FOR
HYDROCARBON ENTRAPMENT AND THE FUTURE
POTENTIAL IN THE SIRTE BASIN, LIBYA.
Barsoum T.K. Exploration & Development Consultants, London
The Infracambrian reservoirs, (Fractured and weathered basement including
quartzites) contain more than 1% of the initial recoverable reserves in the Sirt
Basin i.e. more than 500 Million Barrel Oil.
Of the 3 5 producing fields, 4 fields namely Augila/Nafoora, Amal, Rakb D1-12
and Rakb JJ-12 are producing from fractured basement (Infracambrian, Riphean
age) as well as younger reservoirs in structural traps. Oil was also encountered
in fractured infracambrian basement and Nubian Sandstone in two of the 55
Single Oil and Gas Discoveries, at Waha's 5G1-59 and 3V1-59 wells.
The Infracambrian basement configuration in the Sirt Basin reflects a typical
example of an intracratonic rift basin. There is abundance of tensional structures
consisting of fault blocks between normal faults. The basement block-faulting
caused the development of intricate horst-graben province. The faults are aligned
east-west, northeast-southwest, or northwest-southeast, which reflects tectonic
movement, latter trend being the youngest. The major horsts are occupied by
intrusive and extrusive rocks whereas the major grabens (troughs) are mainly
underlain by metamorphics which represented most of the country rock prior to
the igneous intrusion that occurred during the Pan-African episode (Riphean,
600-500 ma.ago) from Infracambrian to Early Cambrian. This basement
structural setting indicates that the metamorphics are the oldest rocks. The
youngest igneous rocks would be the volcanics as they penetrated both the
metamorphic and the plutonic rocks (also observed in outcrops) and in some
instances the Paleozoic and the Nubian sediments as dikes, sills or lava flows.
Some of these older volcanics could represent an effective Infracambrian
basement whe never they are old enough to be of Pan-African age, for example
in the area to northeast of Gialo Field at YY1-59 well and in the western and
southwestern Faregh area at 5A-59 well and probably at III1-59, H1-126, X1-71
and Q1-65 wells.
No basement rocks of Mesoproterozoic age were reported in the Sirt Basin. This
might lead to the conclusion that the Infracambrian basement under discussion
does not belong to the African Shield.
It should be mentioned that some of the quartzitic sediments present in deep
trough areas known as the Gargaf Formation could be of Infracambrian age and
close correlatives of siliciclastic Infracambrian sequence discovered on the
Cyrenaica Platform. Detailed study and further investigation on the age dating is
warranted for these observations.
There is a good possibility of encountering other hydrocarbon accumulations in
fractured Infracambrian basement in other areas in the Sirt Basin. In future
exploration drilling, whenever hydrocarbons are encountered in younger
reservoirs, should be extended to the basement, whenever possible. This
concept has been applied with excellent results at Waha's 4U-59 and Agoco's
Latif Fields. Production in these two fields has been from Oligocene Sands and
none of the wells drilled reached beyond Paleocene until it was recommended to
drill deeper. Significant amount of Gas was encountered in the Late Cretaceous
Lidam Formation in both fields. The drilled wells drilled, bottomed in Paleozoic or
older Volcanics.
In Sirt Basin, basement played an imp otent role in hydrocarbon entrapment by
sands wedging against Bald Basement Highs (Stratigraphic/Structural Trap) such
as at Agoco's giant Missala Field and the abandoned Magid Field at the
southeast and northeast of Sarir Bald Basement High, respectively. Other
examples include Waha's 5R1-59 and the recently discovered giant 6JJ-59 at the
southeast and northwest of the Gialo Bald Basement High respectively and at
Waha's undeveloped Faregh Field at the Agub Trend (EE-59 and 5H-59 Wells).
There is a great potential that similar hydrocarbon accumulations can be
discovered in other areas of the Sirt Basin, where Infracambrian (Riphean)
quartizites wedge out against Bald Basement Highs providing that structural
closures against the basement and adequate reservoi r rocks are present. It is
highly recommended that these areas should be investigated and explored for
accumulation in siliciclastic reservoirs ranging in age from Infracambrian to Early
cretaceous.
The Origin of Fault-Related Basement Structures in the Al Kufrah Basin: A
Structural Assessment of a Regional Magnetic Map.
A. A. Sherif 1 and B. S. El-Mejrab 2
1 Geology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Fateh University, Tripoli, Libya
2 National Oil Corporation, Tripoli, Libya
The interpretation of a magnetic map covering most of the Al Kufrah Basin in SE
Libya, together with the interpretation of several seismic sections from the basin,
reveals a prominent conjugate set of faults related to a major northeast-trending
shear zone. These faults show a NE structural trend throughout the basin, and a
subsidiary NW-NNW trend. The linearity and the rhomboidal shaped magnetic
anomalies confirm the existence of the shear zone.
Such anomalies are probably accentuated by the highly ferruginous fault zones
observed during geological mapping of parts of the northeastern outcrops, and
from the study of some satellite images covering parts of the southeastern
outcrops of the basin. The magnetic anomalies are characterized by narrow
wavelengths towards the NW and SE, following the northeast-trending shear
zone, that become progressively broader towards the centre of the basin. The
lengths of the waves are a reflection of the depth of the magnetic Precambrian
basement as it becomes shallower towards the northwest and southeast. Some
seismic sections within the broad wavelength of the basin reveal conspicuous
seismic signatures of Infracambrian sequences between the overlying
Palaeozoic and the Precambrian basement. Most faults picked on seismic
sections are vertical and reach basement, extending in some cases upwards all
the way to the surface, most often splaying near the surface as flower structures.
These characteristics suggest that the faults are of strike-slip nature involving
reactivation. The variable vertical displacement exhibited by these faults is
probably caused by the change in direction of the acting forces relative to the
trends of these faults. Potential structural traps for hydrocarbons related to such
faults are very abundant in the area as revealed by the studied seismic sections.
Hydrocarbon accumulations and reserves in Infracambrian reservoirs, the
importance of basement for hydrocarbon entrapment and the future
potential of the Sirt Basin, Libya
Barsoum T.K.
Exploration & Development Consultants, London
Infracambrian reservoirs, (fractured and weathered basement) contain
more than 1% of the initial recoverable resaves in the Sirt Basin i.e. more than
500 Million Barrel Oil.
Of the 35 producing fields, 4 fields namely Augila/Nafoora, Amal, Rakb
D1-12 and Rakb JJ-12 produce hydrocarbons from fractured basement as well
as younger reservoirs in structural traps. Oil has also been encountered in
fractured basement and Nubian Sandstone in two of the 55 Single Oil and Gas
Discoveries, at Wa ha's 5G1-59 and 3V1-59 wells.
The possibility of encountering hydrocarbon accumulations in fractured
basement in other places in the Sirt Basin is good. In future exploration drilling
whenever hydrocarbons are encountered in younger reservoirs, it is highly
recommended that drilling should continue basement whenever possible. This
concept has been applied with excellent results at Waha's 4U-59 and Agoco's
Latif Fields. Production in these two fields has been from Oligocene Sands and
none of the wells drilled reached further than Paleocene until it was
recommended to drill deeper. Significant amount of Gas was encountered in the
Ku Lidam Fm in both fields. The wells drilled were terminated in Paleozoic
Volcanics.
Basement played an important role in hydroc arbon entrapment in the Sirt
Basin by having sands wedging out against bald basement highs
(Stratigraphic/Structural Trap). Examples include Agoco's giant Missal Field and
the now abandoned Magid Field respectively on the southeast and northeast side
of the Sarir bald basement high. Also Waha's 5R1-59 and the recently
discovered giant at 6JJ-59, respectively on the southeast and northwest side of
the Gialo bald basement high, and Waha's undeveloped Faregh Field on the
Agub Trend (EE-59 and 5H-59 Wells) There is great potential for similar
hydrocarbon accumulations to be discovered in other areas of the Sirt Basin
around bald basement highs provided that structural closures against basement
and adequate reservoir are present. It is highly recommended that the se areas
should be investigated.
Structural analysis of Ghadamis Basin by using Gravity data,
NW Libya
M. Saleem1 and M. Elmaradi2
Libyan Petroleum Institute, Tripoli, Libya
The Ghadamis Basin covers parts of western Libya, southern Tunisia and
eastern Algeria, and contains Infracambrian, Paleozoic and Mesozoic sediments
that unconformably overly an igneous and metamorphic basement complex. This
paper presents a structural analysis of the Ghadamis Basin in NW Libya, using
gravity data from 34000 gravity stations distributed across the basin. This
comprises about 60% of the basin coverage.
A Bouguer gravity map, with a grid cell size of 5 Km, was produced to
highlight the distribution of the gravity anomalies in the area. This map shows a
very low gravity anomaly in the central part of the basin surrounded by a high
gravity anomalies to the north, south and east.
A residual gravity map was derived from the Bouguer gravity map. This
residual shows the effect of shallow sources within the prospective sedimentary
section.
The horizontal derivative of the residual gravity was also computed. This
highlights the main structural trends of the area showing a gravity low in the
centre of the basin, and indicating that the overall structure of the basin dips
towards the Algerian border. A NW - SE trending structural high is located
towards the Qargaf Arch in the southern part of the basin, together with an E - W
trending gravity high in the same part of the basin. Further to the southwest more
subtle N - S trending features can be seen.
A 360 km long SW-NE trending gravity profile was constructed across
some of the most interesting anomalies in the basin, taking into consideration the
availability of the well data to reduce the uncertainty of the model assumptions.
The model shows a satisfactory fit between the calculated and observed gravity
and demonstrates the morphology of the basement rocks and the major faults in
the area, which occur in the NE part of the profile.
There are some very long wavelength effects from south to north over the
profile accounted by the crustal thinning towards the north and south of the
Ghadamis Basin.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5pei65111MQJ:media.ft.com/cms/64340c28-cdb4-11dc-9e4e-000077b07658.pdf (cached, might load as html)
Tullow to sink a high number of wells in areas that have showed a good track record. In
Uganda, the company has struck oil in all eight of its wells drilled, an unheard of strike rate, and has discovered 250m barrels of recoverable reserves with ambitions to add on hundreds more in new drilling campaigns. Last year’s discovery of a large field off the coast of Ghana, in which Tullow holds a 37 per cent interest