Journal of Petroleum Geology, Vol.13, No.2, pp. 211-220, 1990

©Copyright 2000 Scientific Press, Ltd.

THE GULF OF ADEN RIFT: HYDROCARBON POTENTIAL OF THE ARABIAN SECTOR+

F. M. S. Haitham* and A. S. O. Nani*

*Geological Section, Petroleum Exploration Department, Ministry of Energy and Minerals, People's Democratic Republic of Yemen.

+ Although specifically funded by neither Organisation, this paper represents a significant contribution from P.D.R. Yemen to the UNDP/World Bank Red Sea--Gulf of Aden Regional Hydrocarbon Project (UNDO/ RAB/88/021). It is the fifth in what is expected to be a series of some 30 papers concerned with the origin, tectonic and sedimentary history, and hydrocarbon potential of this complex rift basin (the first four papers appeared in the April, 1989, issue of the Journ. Petrol. Geol.). Reprints of all these papers will be collated into a Memoire. to be published after the project closes in 1992.
Z.R. Beydoun, Project Scientific Director

Abstract

Stratigraphic results from eight offshore exploration wells drilled between 1979 and 1983 are described, and the successions penetrated are compared with the adjacent land outcrops and facies, these are also depicted in lithostratigraphic correlation charts/sections for the area. The Oligo-Miocene Shihr Group is divided into formations which are described and correlated between the wells, and a new post-Shihr formation is likewise described and correlated.