Geologist Alert:
Courtesy of HighBeam Research Title: IRAQ - The Geology.
Date: 4/25/2005; Publication: APS Review Gas Market Trends;
Iraq embraces the north-western portion of the prolific Arabian Basin and the Zagros Fold Belt. From south-west to north-east, the thick post-Precambrian sediments of the Arabian Basin dip gently off the Arabian Shield, beneath the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and subsequently become involved in the strongly folded Zagros Fold Belt.
Close to the Iranian border in the north-east, the land rises to the complex Zagros Thrust Zone. Structural trends are similar to those seen in the Arabian Peninsula and in Iran, i.e., in the Zagros foothills the trend is north-west/south-east. The folds frequently have surface expression.
In the southern marshes of the country lies Majnoon, a super-giant oilfield found in 1975 by a unit of Petrobras with more than 30 bn barrels of oil in place. At least 11 bn barrels are recoverable at low cost. Partly developed, Majnoon can be brought on stream within 26 months of concentrated work for an initial capacity of 450,000 b/d which will rise to 600,000 b/d later and could eventually reach up to 3m b/d. Later it was found that Majnoon was part of the Great Rumaila Triangle.
Majnoon was first estimated to have 7 bn barrels with the oil's quality varying from heavy to medium according to several pay zones. Heavier oil in deeper zones were in 1990 put at 23-25 bn barrels. Located in the Hawizah marshes, mostly under man-made islands close to Iran's border north of Basra, Majnoon extends 60 km inland. Its development was held up in the 1980s by a flooding ... <more> http://snipurl.com/elcy
Leigh