A STUDY ON PETROLEUM GEOLOGY AND HYDROCARBON POTENTIAL IN EASTERN AFRICA

Multiple intra-Craton rift and passive marginal sedimentary basins are developed in eastern Africa.Since the exploration degree was very low,only several natural gas fields were discovered.With the increasing demand for hydrocarbon all over the world,eastern Africa will be the new important area for petroleum exploration and development.Based on studies of regional geology and petroleum geology in eastern Africa,this paper concludes that these basins are composite basins that were developed on the Cambrian base during Tertiary.Several basic characteristics of petroleum geology are generating gas in the Karoo group of Paleozoic,generating oil in rock of Mesozoic and poor preservation in the basins of Cenozoic.The potential exploration and evaluation targets are reservoir groups below the Karoo Group,middle-Cenozoic basins along the seashore of Somalia-Mozambique,Tertiary rift basins,and sedimentary basins bordering on Sudan and Red Sea.