Unlocking the Untapped Hydrocarbon Potenial of the Darduma Member as an Unconventional Reservoir in the Obayied Field, Western Desert, Egypt

Active exploration efforts are required to replace the produced reserves to guarantee future income and maintain production quotas. This approach can be achieved by exploring new blocks or by drill deeper in old developing blocks to explore new levels (e.g. Paleozoic) or by exploring unconventional reservoirs. The world exploration trends now are towards unconventional reservoirs due to its long production history, but we have few if no mature trials in this trend. The objective of this work is to assess the prospectivity of Darduma limestone because it is thought to offer opportunity to delineate new reserves. The Obaiyed field (Fig. 1) is one of the largest gas producing fields in the Western Desert. It is located on one of Western Terraces of Matruh Basin. The field is mainly producing from the Jurassic Lower Safa Reservoir in addition to some thin sands within the Upper Safa Member. The Cumulative Production from Gas is 942,310 MMscf. and from Condensate is 57,930,000 bbl. Darduma Member is the lowermost part of Masajid Formation, which consists mainly of limestone with minor shale streaks. It underlain by Zahra Member of Khatatba Formation (Fig. 2). It is have nearly constant thickness with average thickness of about 100m.