Oil and gas reservoir types in Kurdish region of Iraq and its distribution characteristics

Kurdish region of Iraq belongs to the northern part of Zagros basin, which is a foreland basin with the most abundant conventional oil and gas resources in the world. Through detailed analysis of the hydrocarbon accumulation environment and structural characteristics of typical oil and gas reservoirs in this region, it is believed that under the compression environment affected by the foreland basin evolution, the oil and gas reservoir types in different parts of the foreland basin are different, which can be divided into two major categories, the ones controlled by faults and the ones not controlled by faults and it is further divided into seven sub-categories, among which the thrust anticline traps and the footwall anticline traps in the folded belt of Kirkuk area are the favorable exploration targets for oil and gas, while the low-amplitude anticline and the transform fault in Mosul area is favorable for oil and gas accumulation with low exploration degree, which is the key target of oil and gas exploration in the future.