Storage and Trap of Oil

Storage and Trap of Oil

• Middle East’s output is over 30% of the world’s crude.

• The Middle East is renowned for its rich carbonate oil

reservoirs.

• In the Middle East, however, carbonates were deposited on a

long and wide shelf from the Permian to the Paleocene with
insignificant hiatus.

 Even after the Arabia-Asia collision, carbonate sedimentation

continued in a very shallow marine environment.
• Limestones and dolomite reservoirs of the Middle East have fairly good
porosity and permeability.

 Primary porosity has been well preserved in packstones and grainstones such as those
of the Late Jurassic Arab Formation widely spread in the Middle East.

• The Zagros deformation has created fracture networks enhancing

permeability, especially in cemented limestones such as the Oligocene-
Miocene limestones of southwest Iran (Asmari Formation) and eastern
Iraq (Jerrible Formation).

• Middle East basins also contain evaporite beds, which are efficient seals
because of their ductility.

 These ductile evaporite and shale beds have also acted as detachment horizons for the
Zagros thrust structures, thus producing vertical compartments of petroleum systems
within the sedimentary succession.
Stratigraphy and petroleum source-reservoir rocks of selected areas in the Middle East