Chairman's introduction Mr. NAFICY: It is indeed a great honour for me to be selected by the Scientific Programme Committee and by the Permanent Council of the World Petroleum Congress to preside over a meeting which brings together some of the most distinguished personalities of the Exploration side of the Petroleum Industry. It is further a great honour for me that so many of the personalities have responded to my appeal and have accepted to present papers, which I am confident will remain as works of reference for many years to come.
In the growing need for petroleum, whether liquid or gas, and its products, the search for petroleum extends farther and farther not only into the different parts of the world, both on land and offshore, but also into the deeper parts of the stratigraphic column and the earth's crust. Realization that there seems to be no hard and fast rule to the occurrence of petroleum as to the rock type, age, depth, environment or setting, except for a few basic prerequisites, coupled with advances in the field of technology, perfection and development of finer tools as well as progress in analysis and rationalization of the basic factors governing such subjects as migration, accumulation, recovery and so on, gradually resulted in new discoveries and development of new, and revival of old, oil producing regions. It would even seem that the sky or the socalled basement are no limits, since some statements have already appeared in print concerning whether there might be petroleum on some heavenly bodies or in the basement.
It is, therefore, natural that a panel discussion such as this one has an immense task of not only highlighting and authoritatively examining the widely separated territories of the world, but also in some instances of continents that would qualify under the title of this panel discussion within the prescribed time limits. It is hoped that such a goal will be achieved.
From the Cook Inlet Basin, Alaska, where oil and gas fields produce from the tertiary sandstones and conglomerates of continental origin, to the vast provinces of Siberia, where oil and gas accumulations have been found in Mesozoic and Paleozoic. From the North Sea where active exploration is still continuing at a fast pace and where gas accumulations have already been discovered, through the Groningen gasfield in Netherlands, which established itself as a major find, and the Ayoluengo oil-field in Spain to Libya-Algerian Sahara and Niger Delta on the West Coast of Africa, rocks of different ages have been found to be 290 New Oil Producing Regions petroleum-bearing, establishing new oil-producing regions.
Australia has also come a long way since a decade ago with oil and gas discoveries ranging from Ordovician to Tertiary.
Further discoveries were also made in the Persian Gulf and th
