Reservoir characterization and petroleum geology at esh el mallaha field, southern gulf of Suez, Egypt

Reservoir quality assessment, pointing to possible capacities for holding hydrocarbons, is crucial during exploration-phases of petroleum. This investigation closely examines the petrophysical properties of Nubia-Sandstone Formation upon performing well-log analysis of the available well-log data located at West Esh El Mallaha area, southern part of the Gulf of Suez, Egypt. It is an attempt to reveal the hydrocarbon potentialities within Paleozoic reservoirs of the area. Nubia Formation represents an important reservoir in the Gulf of Suez province with at least 15% of hydrocarbon production potential. Well-log analysis, in means of defining the petrophysical properties (shale-volume, porosity, and water-saturation), of Nubia intervals was an essential objective, in this study, to determine the reservoir quality and hydrocarbon potential capacity of reservoirs in the area. The petrophysical properties have been vertically and laterally illustrated to point out to the ultimate distribution of characteristics within the area. 1D-basin modeling approach was also performed, in this study, to retrieve the geohistory of the area confirming charging of hydrocarbons from intervals of source-prone rocks to reservoir-zones. It has been revealed that Nubia Formation is composed of sandstones interbedded with shales. It possesses a net pay reaching up to 50 feet (from lowest meaningful-value of 1 foot to highest value of 50 feet); with considerable effective porosities up to 20 %. It has been obvious that the southeastern-part of the area features good quality petrophysical characteristics capable of storing and transmitting hydrocarbons within Nubia Formation, leading to big discoveries, at the southern-part of the Gulf of Suez.