Permo-Triassic sequence of the Arabian plate

409 Pages·2013·18.27 MB·English

by  Pöppelreiter

Permo-Triassic Sequence
of the Arabian Plate

Edited by Michael C. Pöppelreiter
© 2013 EAGE Publications bv
All rights reserved. This publication or part hereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form
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and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978-90-73834-42-2

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About the authors and co authors

Lucia Angiolini is a Professor of Palaeontology at the Department of Earth Sciences, University
of Milan, Italy. She received a Ph.D in Earth Sciences from the University of Milan in 1994,
where she is Associate Professor of Paleontology since 2007. Lucia has 20 years of experience in
the study of Carboniferous-Permian sedimentary successions from Peri-Gondwana regions and the
Cimmerian blocks, from Greece to the Himalayas through Turkey, Oman, Iran, the Pamirs and
Karakorum.
Her research interests include brachiopod taxonomy, quantitative biostratigraphy, pal-aeoecology,
palaeobiogeography based on multivariate analyses, Permian correlation between Gondwanan and
Tethyan realms. New ongoing research concerns the use of brachiopods as palaeoclimatic proxies
by tracking the ultrastructure, cathodolumi-nescence, trace elements and stable isotopes of their
shells. Expertise with the Khuff reservoir: biostratigraphy and invertebrate palaeontology.
Lucia Angiolini published 73 papers on international scientific journals and she presented 76
abstracts to international congresses and workshops. She is currently secretary of the
Subcommission on Permian Stratigraphy (SPS), International Commission on Stratigraphy, IUGS
and Vice-president of the International Palaeontological Society.
Adnan A.M. Aqrawi is a Leading Consultant in Research, Development and Innovation (RDI),
Innovation-Networks at Statoil, based in Stavanger, Norway. He obtained his B.Sc in Geology
and M.Sc in Petroleum Geology from University of Baghdad, Iraq, and his Ph.D in
Sedimentology and DIC in Sedimentary Geology from Imperial College-London, UK.
Adnan has around 30 years of international experience as a Petroleum Geoscientist from the
Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia, Caspian Sea, Red Sea, North Sea and Gulf of Mexico
while working for several research centres and oil companies in the Middle East, Malaysia, USA
and Norway. Adnan joined Statoil in 2001 and has been involved mostly in international activities
of Exploration and Business Development in the MENA Region and Gulf of Mexico (USA).
He is an active member of AAPG, EAGE, SPE and NPF. He has a long list of publications in
various international journals and conferences, and co-authored the book ‘The Petroleum Geology
of Iraq’ in 2010 with J. Goff, A. Horbury and F. Sadooni, which was sponsored by Statoil and BP,
and published by the Scientific Press, UK.
Sylvain Richoz studied geology and geochemistry at Lausanne University and was then research
scientist at the Lausanne Geological Museum.
He obtained his Ph.D in 2004 on sedimentology and stratigraphy of the Permian-Triassic
Boundary interval in Oman, Turkey and Iran. Since then Sylvain worked in several project at
Vienna and Frankfurt University.
He is now research scientist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Graz and manages the light
isotope labs of the Institute of Earth Sciences at Graz University. He was involved on several
projects about chemostratigraphy, sedimentology and interactions between life evolution and
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ocean chemistry during the Upper Permian to Lower Jurassic time.
His main focus is on the Permian-Triassic Boundary interval, the Middle Carnian Crisis and the
End-Triassic mass extinction in the Neotethys Realm (Austrian Alps to Himalaya).
Behrooz Esrafili-Dizaji is a Ph.D candidate in Sedimentology and Sedimentary Geology at the
University of Tehran, Iran. He received his M.Sc (2008) from the same institution. Currently, he is
the head of geological core analysis team at MAPSA CO., Tehran, Iran.
His research interests include facies analysis, diagenetic studies, sequence stratigraphy and
reservoir characterization. He has worked on the Permo-Triassic (Dehram group), Cretaceous
(Bangestan/Khami groups) and Oligo/Miocene (Asmari) prolific carbonate reservoirs in the Zagros
and Persian Gulf regions reservoirs. Since 2007, Behrooz, together with his colleagues, has been
working on Dalan and Kangan gas reservoirs (Khuff equivalents) in the various offshore and
onshore fields of Iran. School of Geology, College of Science, University of Tehran.
Mohammad Faqira is presently the Manager of the Eastern Area Exploration Department at Saudi
Aramco. He joined Saudi Aramco after completing his B.Sc in Petroleum Geology from King
Abdulaziz University in Jeddah (1986), Saudi Arabia. In 1991 he obtained a M.Sc in Geology from
Colorado School of Mines, USA. Mohammad began his career as exploration geologist in the Red
Sea. Then he moved to Central Arabia, Western Rub Al Khali, Summan Platform, Easten Saudi
Arabia, and Arabian Gulf. He assumed several management positions: Chief Explorationist for
Eastern Area Exploration (2004–2005), Chief Geophysicist for Geophysical Data Processing (2006–
2007), Chief Geologist for Pore Volume Assessment Division (2008–2009), Chief Geologist for
Regional Resource Assessment Division (2010–2011), Manager for Exploration Resource
Assessment Department 2012–2013) and since May 2013 he became Manager of the Eastern Area
Exploration Department.Mohammad is an expert in Paleozoic exploration for the Arabian Plate. He
has written and presented many regional studies on the Khuff Hydrocarbon system, as well as the
Impact of Hercynian Orogeny on Paleozoic Exploration. Mohammad is a member of AAPG, EAGE,
SEG and DGS.
Holger Forke is currently working as a Stratigraphic Consultant and Wellsite Biosteerer in the
Middle East in association with Millennia Stratigraphic Consultants.
He received his Diploma (1994) and Ph.D (2001) in Geology/Paleontology from the University of
Erlangen (Germany). Holger has spent over 15 years on studying Carboniferous-Permian rocks in
various regions (Southern Alps, Urals, Svalbard, Canadian Arctic, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan).
His main scientific interest focuses on Late Paleozoic to Triassic foraminifera, but covers also
other microfossil groups and aspects on biofacies and depositional environments. In his academic
career he worked on a taxonomic database for Late Paleozoic Larger Foraminifera at the
Senckenberg Museum (Frankfurt/Main), acted as a research associate in the University of
Erlangen and was as guest researcher in the Natural History Museum in Berlin.
He participated in several expeditions and mapping campaigns to Svalbard and the Canadian
Arctic in cooperation with the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) and the Bundesanstalt für
Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR).
Since 2008 he has been involved in academic and industry-related projects of the Khuff
Formation in Oman and Saudi Arabia emphasizing the application of biofacies concepts for an
integrated sequence-biostratigraphy on the Arabian Platform. Holger is a voting member of the
International Subcommission on Carboniferous Stratigraphy (SCCS).
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Riyasat Husain received Master of Science and Master of Philosophy degrees, both in Geology,
from Aligarh Muslim University, India. He currently works as Specialist Geologist in the Kuwait
Oil Company (KOC), Kuwait. He is a member of EAGE, SPE, GSI and IAS.
He started his career as Research Fellow at the CSIR, India in 1984. He has worked extensively on
the depositional and tectonic aspects of various Indian sedimentary basins while employed at the
ONGC from 1985–2002. Currently he leads the ‘Integrated Geological & Geophysical Studies
Unit’ at the KOC. His primary technological responsibilities lie in the regional studies and
identification of new exploration concepts and leads at different stratigraphic levels in Kuwait. He
steered the efforts for reviving the Khuff and pre-Khuff exploration in Kuwait since 2002 and also
made significant contribution to frontier exploration for shale gas, Lower Fars and offshore.
He represented the KOC Exploration on the KPC Strategic Direction Review, KOC 2030 Strategy,
Technical Review Committee and the Stratigraphic Committee of the Arabian Gulf.
His professional interests include basin evaluation, petroleum system and play analysis and
unconventional exploration. He has over 60 technical publication/abstracts to his credit.
Xavier Janson received his Ph.D from University of Miami in 2002 where he was a student in
the Comparative Sedimentology Laboratory.
He received a D.E.A (equivalent to an M.Sc) from the IFP School. He joined the Reservoir
Characterization Research Laboratory (RCRL) at the Bureau of Economic Geology of the Jackson
School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin in 2002 where his current research
involved building 3D geocellular model and 3D synthetic seismic model from outcrop study to
help reservoir characterization and seismic interpretation.
Xavier worked the Khuff Fm. in outcrop near the town of Buraydah with Saudi Aramco in 2004.
Mohammad Ali Kavoosi received his Ph.D degree in the Upper Jurassic Mozduran Formation
from Teacher Training University of Tehran, Iran in 2009. He has worked for National Iranian Oil
Company Exploration Directorate since 1998.
He presently is a Senior Geologist and Head of Stratigraphy and Sedimentology of the Zagros and
Persian Gulf. He did his M.Sc on facies analysis and depositional environment of Upper Permian
Dalan Formation at the Dena and Surmeh outcrops in High and simply folded Zagros, respectively.
He cooperated for this project on Dalan and Kangan formations (Khuff Formation) with REPSOL
YPF in 2003 and 2006 in the eastern part of Persian Gulf. Kavoosi analyzed reservoir properties
and role of paleohighs in reservoir facies distribution and squence stratigraphy of the Dalan and
Kangan formations project in the offshore and onshore. His major interests include seimic and
sequence stratigraphy and diagensis.
Dirk Knaust is a Specialist in Sedimentology with Statoil in Stavanger, Norway, where he works
in Research, Development and Innovation and is involved in Exploration research. He received a
Diploma in 1993 and a Ph.D in 1998, both from the University of Greifswald, Germany.
His geological experience, prior to joining Statoil in 2006, includes 8 years technical services in
Norway as a consultant for different companies operating fields in offshore Norway and
internationally (Shell, BP, Statoil, Norsk Hydro, Amoco). Dirk’s professional activities include
the application of sedimentological, stratigraphical and palaeon-tological methods in the
characterisation of siliciclastic and carbonate reservoirs.
His special interest is on ichnology and its implication on facies distribution, reservoir zonation
and impact on reservoir quality as studied in the South Pars field of Iran. Dirk is a member of
EAGE, SEPM, the Palaeontological Association and the Ichnological Association.
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Dirk has published about 50 scientific articles and book chapters and recently has co-edited an
Elsevier volume about ‘Trace Fossils as Indicators of Sedimentary Environments’.
Cees van Oosterhout is a micropaleontologist who has worked for Nederlandse Aardolie
Maatschappij (NAM), Mobil, Wintershall, Utrecht University, Shell EPX4 (Russia Team),
OKIOC (Kashagan), SEPIV, EPB-S, Shell Temir, Shell Gabon and now Shell Research for more
than 20 years through Argo Geological Consultants.
Most of his work in the past 15 years included seismic interpretation and mapping for E&P, and
most recently, developing software tools for PaleoGIS.
He currently works with Shell's Basin Modeling and Inversion team.
Irene Perez-Gomez holds a B.Sc and Ph.D by the University of the Basque Country (Bilbao,
Spain). After completing her Ph.D in carbonate sedimentology she was for 2 years a Fulbright
Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (carbonate diagenesis) and later
rejoined her home university as Associate Professor in Sedimentary Petrology.
In 1997 she joined CASP (Cambridge, UK) as a geologist and Project Leader, working for oil
companies in frontier hydrocarbon basins around the world (Argentina, Brazil, Siberia, the
Russian Arctic and the Central Caspian). From 2006 she worked in Repsol-YPF as senior
geologist in the Regional Studies Group.
Irene joined PDO in October 2009 as Sedimentology Team Leader. She has over 20 years
experience working as a sedimentologist (carbonates and clastics), with strong background in
sequence stratigraphy, basin tectonics & evolution, paleo-geography and hydrocarbon systems.
She has worked on regional exploration of Khuff carbonates in the offshore of the Persian Gulf,
and later in diagenesis and origin of H2S in Khuff reservoirs in Oman.
Michael Pöppelreiter is Learning and Development Lead Geology for Shell in the Netherlands
and Honour Professor for Petroleum Geology at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
Michael studied at the Mining University of Freiberg, Germany, the Postgraduate Research
Institute of Sedimentology, United Kingdom and the University of Tübingen, Germany, where he
earned a Ph.D in 1998. Since then, Michael has worked as a sedimentologist with Shell in the
Netherlands, as carbonate geologist and modeller at Shell’s Bellaire Technology Center in
Houston, USA senior carbonate geologist and team leader with Shell in Qatar, became SME for
carbonates and subsequently worked as Chief Geologist for Shell in Kuwait.
He co-founded Shell’s borehole image team in 2003, coordinated a regional Khuff outcrop study
in Oman, followed by a CCS research project in carbonates in Qatar and currently manages the
‘Digital Geology’ project for Shell in Spain.
He has published numerous papers on carbonate reservoir characterisation, modelling and BHI. He
is member of AAPG, EAGE and VDI, was nominated in 2012 for VP Elect AAPG Middle East
and received the Robert H. Dott, Sr. Memorial Award of AAPG in 2012.
Parmjit Singh has more than 29 years experience in the Oil Exploration Industry. He has M.Sc
and M.Phil degrees in physics and Ph.D degree in geology. He has worked in Oil & Natural Gas
Corporation, India as an Exploration Geophysicist for 24 years and rose to the position of Chief
Geophysicist.
He has an extensive experience in interpretation of seismic data for structural/stratigraphic
analysis. Dr Singh specializes in the use of non-seismic methods and its integration with seismic
in oil exploration.
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He joined Kuwait Oil Company in 2008 as Senior Geophysicist in Exploration Group. He has
been involved in generating many exploratory leads in offshore and Heavy Oil & Shale Oil/Gas
in onshore Kuwait.
His research areas include integration of seismic, gravity & magnetic for oil exploration. He has
authored many technical reports and more than thirty technical papers in International
Conferences / Workshops and Journals. He is a member of SEG, EAGE and SPG-India. He has
been a recipient of excellent professional awards many times.
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Contents 

Introdu ction by s pecial e ditor Mi chael C.  Pöppelr eiter              iii 
Acknowledgements                     iv  
1. The Khuff Formation: Play Elements and Development History of an Epicontinental 
Carbonate Platform                     1  
M.C. Pöppelreiter and E. Marshall   
2. Plate Reconstructions and Distribution of Sedimentary Facies during the Permo‐Triassic  
Opening of the Neo‐Tethys Ocean                  17 
C.W.M. van Oosterhout and M.C. Pöppelreiter   
3. Basement Configuration and its Impact on Permo‐Triassic Prospectivity in Kuwait      40 
P. Singh, R. Husain,Y. Al‐Zuabi, O. Al‐Khaled, M. Rahaman, M. Hameed, M. Ebrahim, 
M. Hafez, T. Al‐Rashid, S. Al‐Ghareeb, A. Al‐Kandary and A. Al‐Fares   
4. Khuff Margin: Slope to Oceanic Deposits (Permian‐Triassic Allochthons and Exotics, Oman)    53 
S. Richoz, A. Baud, B. Beauchamp, S.E. Grasby, Ch. Henderson and L.Krystyn   
5. Biostratigraphy and Biofacies of Khuff Time‐Equivalent Strata in the Al Jabal Al‐Akhdar 
Area (Hajar Mountains), Northern Oman                75 
H.C. Forke, B. Köhrer, D. Bendias, L. Walz and T. Aigner   
6. The Khuff Foreshoal of Interior Oman                 120 
L. Angiolini, F. Berra, M.H. Stephenson and D. Vachard   
7. Evidence of Volcanic Activity in the Upper Permian Nar Member of the Dalan Formation, 
Southwest Iran                       142 
M.A. Kavoosi   
8. A Review of the Permo‐Triassic Gas Play in the Arabian Gulf Region         159  
M.I. Faqira, A.F. Bakhiet, D.Z. Tang, W. Tan and A. Ahmed   
9. Hydrocarbon Potential of the Upper Permian Chia Zairi Formation in Iraq        200 
A.A.M. Aqrawi, A.H. Al‐Hadidy and A.D. Horbury  
10. Controls on Reservoir Quality in the Early Triassic Kangan Formation, Iran        222
B. Esrafili‐Dizaji, F. Kiani Harchegani, H. Rahimpour‐Bonab and M.R. Kamali   
11. Classification of Bioturbation‐Related Reservoir Quality in the Khuff Formation 
(Middle East): Towards a Genetic Approach               255
D. Knaust   
12. Outcrop‐Based 3D Geological and Reservoir Model of the Uppermost Khuff Formation 
in Central Saudi Arabia                     279 
X. Janson, F.J. Lucia, J.W. Jennings, J.A. Bellian, A.A. AbuBshait, R.K. Al‐Dukhayyil, H.W. Mueller 
and D. Cantrell   
13. Khuff Formation in Kuwait: An Overview               316 
R. Husain, D.A. Khan, A. Sajer, N. Al‐Ammar and A. Al‐Fares   
14. Diagenetic Evolution of a Permo‐Triassic Khuff Ool itic Reservoir  in North Oman    342 
I. Perez‐ Gom ez, S. Farq ani , M. Claps an d H. Peters   
15. Re gional  Top Seal of th e Kh uff Reservoir: The  Sud a ir Formation        399 
M.C. Pöppelreiter and M. Obermaier   
About  the Authors and Co  Authors                 416