The unconventional hydrocarbon resources of Greece

Abstract

In ten sive ex plo ra tion of prob a ble con ven tional hy dro car bon res er voirs in Greece is tak ing place, through the in ter pre ta tion of seis mic pro files and of abun dant sur face geo log i cal data. The un con ven tional hy dro car bon po ten tial of the coun try is unknown, as de tailed in ves ti ga tions are lack ing. The most im por tant rock for ma tions which may con tain shale gas are found in the land and off shore bas ins of north east ern, north-cen tral, and west ern Greece. A re-eval u a tion of the data from all boreholes is needed, on the ba sis of new in for ma tion, with the aim of iden ti fy ing pos si ble re serves of un con ven tional hy dro carbons re tained in highly com pacted fine-grained strata. Meth ane hy drates have been de tected in the sub ma rine Anaximander Moun tains, east of Rhodes Is land. They cover an area of about 46 km 2 and the vol ume of meth ane is es ti mated at 2.6-6.4 trillion m 3 . The low con tent of the Greek lig nites in gas eous hy dro car bons and the wide spread tec ton ics in the Hel lenic Pen insula are the main fac tors which pre vented large gas ac cu mu la tions in its 14 main coal de pos its. How ever, ad di tional re search is needed to eval u ate the coal-bed gas po ten tial of the coun try.

Preliminary results based on geochemical sedimentary constraints on the hydrocarbon potential and depositional environment of a Messinian sub-salt mixed siliciclastic-carbonate succession onshore Crete (Plouti section, eastern Mediterranean)

“…1). Hydrocarbon potential in this region, particularly along the subduction zone and collisional margins, has been of long-standing academic and industrial interest (Zelilidis et al 2003;Samuel et al 2009;Bruneton et al 2011;Maravelis et al 2012;Pantopoulos et al 2013;Tsirambides 2015). However, recent discoveries have significantly altered the energy outlook in the region, with interest of the authorities and petroleum industry spurring additional exploration activities along the MR.…”