Architecture and Development of Birsa Reservoir Facies in the Gulf of Hammamet

The Gulf of Hammamet lies in the North offshore of a Meso-Cenozoic nature basin, so called pelagian basin of Tunisia. This Gulf is a prolific petroleum province proved by several oil and gas discoveries (Birsa, Halk El Manzel,... [ view full abstract ]

The Gulf of Hammamet lies in the North offshore of a Meso-Cenozoic nature basin, so called pelagian basin of Tunisia.
This Gulf is a prolific petroleum province proved by several oil and gas discoveries (Birsa, Halk El Manzel, Cosmos fields…).
The Gulf of Hammamet shows a complete petroleum system (source rock, reservoirs, traps, seals).
It is also a very complex tectonic area. The main reservoir in the Gulf is the Serravalian Birsa formation.
This formation is fluvio-deltaic. Three members compose it: the Upper and Lower Birsa sands and the Middle Birsa carbonates.
Birsa has shown many oil and gas indices and tests, but these shows did not exist everywhere in the reservoir.
This absence can be related to the tectonic influence or even related to the failing of the petroleum system.
Then, the tectonic events and structural complexities had influenced the distribution of this reservoir.
Therefore, we tried through this work to restore the deposits repartition in the Gulf of Hammamet using lithostratigraphic correlations of the several formations and using many flattened levels in order to reconstitute the tectono-sedimentary evolution of the Gulf of Hammamet.
This study allowed us also to figure out the best facies distribution and layers development of Birsa reservoir using sequential stratigraphic approach in order to detect the prosperous area of this reservoir.
Therefore, we used several facies correlations based on wells data to reconstitute the probable tectonic architecture of this basin during the Geological times and during the Birsa deposition and also to delimit and promote the petroleum potential in the Gulf of Hammamet
key words: Serravalian, Birsa formation, petroleum system, Gulf of Hammamet, Tunisia.