Sirt Basin Stratigraphy and Hydrocarbon Potential
(Under Construction!)

Introduction
The Sirt basin, or embayment, is the youngest of the Libyan basins. It has the largest petroleum reserves in Libya and is ranked 13th among the world's petroleum basins. The basin's recoverable reserves are about 45 billion barrels of oil and 33 trillion cubic feet of gas. Generally the origin of the Sirt Basin is attributed to the collapse of the Sirt Arch during latest Jurassic to Early Cretaceous times. Massa and Delort (1984) reported that the Sirt Basin was a permanent high from the Middle Paleozoic until the Early Mesozoic. In the Early Paleozoic the basin was the site of siliciclastic deposition, and clastics accumulated all over North Africa. In the Cretaceous and Tertiary, large quantities of organic-rich shales and other terrigenous clastic materials accumulated in the basinal area.

Location of major Sedimentary Basins of Libya (click on hot spots on map to visit pages).

The Sirt Basin contains some sixteen giant oil fields with about 117 Billion barrels of proven oil in place recoverable reserves. The two principal source rocks in the Sirt Province are the Upper Cretaceous Rachmat Shale and Sirt Shale. Hydrocarbon distribution of the Sirt Basin has been controlled by the major tectonic elements. This is particularly true of reservoirs related to Cretaceous and Eocene to Miocene rift structures. These reservoirs in Sirt Basin are composed of 58% of clastic, mostly is of Mesozoic age and 42% of carbonate rocks mostly of Tertiary age.

East-West cross section of Sirt Basin (Modified from Roohi, 1996)

East-west cross section in central Sirt Basin showing the oil. Migration through faults from eastern Maradah Trough to Paleocene carbonate rocks on Az Zahrah - Al Hufrah platform. Source: Roohi, 1996 and Hallett, 2002