Geology and petroleum resources of central and east-central Africa

Abstract

The petroleum provinces of central and east-central Africa include the Somali Basin, the Ethiopian plateau and rift belt, the Red Sea Basin, and the central African rift basins. The east African shelf (Somali Basin) in the "Horn of Africa" contains a sedimentary cover 1,000 to 10,000 m (3,000 to 35,000 ft) thick of Mesozoic and Tertiary marine and continental clastic, carbonate and evaporite deposits with good reservoir and potentially adequate source-rock properties. To date, approximately 85 exploratory wells have been drilled in this province and no commercial oil or gas discoveries have been made. Most of the drilling has been on fold and fault structures, many of which were inadequately mapped by geophysical means. Testing for stratigraphic traps has been minimal. USGS estimates of original recoverable petroleum resources (ultimate) of the central and east-central Africa provinces as of December 1982 are approximately 21 billion barrels of oil (BBO) and 83 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas, most of which is in the Upper Nile, Chad, and Doba-Doseo (Chari) Basins.