The Meleiha Concession is located in the Western Desert, near the Khalda High, and between the Matruh sub-basin (East) and the Shushan sub-basin (West). Several historical oil fields are situated within its boundaries and have provided a good production for several decades. These fields are all constituted by structural closures inside the Jurassic to Cretaceous formations of Khatatba, Alam El Bueib and Bahariya. In 2012 the well Emry Deep 1x discovered oil in the Lower Cretaceous Alam El Bueib Fm., sub-unit 3G. The discovery resulted to be far beyond the pre-drill expectations because the hydrocarbon column exceeded what was considered to be the spill point of the structural closure. Subsequently, Emry Deep 2 drilled the western flank of the structure and confirmed the discovery, whereas Emry Deep 4 was drilled in the eastern flank and did not find the reservoir: this was replaced by a thick shaly interval which constituted a stratigraphic component playing an important role in the trapping architecture.
The envisaged sedimentological model indicates that this shaly interval is the passive back-fill of a deep N-S elongated canyon cut into the Alam El Bueib 3G braided delta system. The available old 3D PSTM seismic volume did not support such a model and did not allow to map the canyon margins. The new 3D PSDM volume which was carried out after the discovery allowed identifying the canyon geometry and better understanding the trapping mechanism, a combination of stratigraphic and structural elements. The Emry Deep represents a new play and paves the way for additional promising exploration in an otherwise mature province.
