The Oil and Gas Basins of Africa

Abstract

Today Africa produces about 7.0% of the world's oil and a similar amount of the world's gas from a range of basins that include intra-cratonic sags, epicratonic embayments and basins that form part of the rift-drift sequence caused by the post-Triassic break up of Pangaea. Petroleum occurs throughout the stratigraphic column from Late Archaean to Recent. There is no doubt that, given political stability, African petroleum production could be dramatically enhanced with little further exploration. There is still great potential for future oil and gas discoveries, especially offshore, as seismic, drilling and production technology constantly improve. There is also potential for producing unconventional petroleum resources, both coal-bed methane from Karoo coals, and shale gas production in the Karoo basin and in North African source rocks of Algeria and Libya in particular.