Offshore Malta: Play Types And Results From Petroleum System Modelling

The Maltese Islands have a long hydrocarbon exploration history, but with limited success, so far. However, as the southern part of the Ragusa plateau (Hyblean foreland) has major oil fields offshore Southern Sicily it should be considered as prospective region. In terms of prospectivity, the area in the south is surrounded by proven petroleum systems and shows; and from an exploration point of view, with important analogies to the well-known offshore Tunisia and northern Libyan petroleum provinces. In the north, the area is next to offshore southern Sicily with well-known large oil fields on the Ragusa plateau. Offshore Malta is covered by several seismic vintages of 2D data (WG and TGS). Interpretation of 2D, both structural and stratigraphic, delineates a better understanding of the individual petroleum systems within the area. The objective of the study is to summarize the results of the interpretation completed by WG and TGS tying areas covered by both parties’ seismic, extrapolate the findings across the plays and leads identified on seismic offshore Malta and update our insight with new petroleum system analyses, to assess the geological evolution of the area, and give our perspective on the exploration potential of this under-explored area.