Natural Hydrogen Exploration Roadmap for the Middle East and North Africa

Natural hydrogen has moved from curiosity to exploration target since production began at Bourakebougou in Mali. The Middle East and North Africa holds several of the settings that generate hydrogen elsewhere, from the Samail Ophiolite of Oman and the UAE to the ultramafic belts of the Arabian Shield and the Precambrian basement of the North African cratons, yet the region has attracted little dedicated study.

Geologic assessed the region as eleven plays on a documented literature search. Each play carries a chance of detectable surface expression, built from a prior set by the play class and updated by that play's own evidence, and a chance of a preserved accumulation. Every value is propagated by Monte Carlo draws, and the mapping from evidence to probability is stated so a second assessor can contest it.

The five exposed ultramafic massifs stand at 0.85 to 0.94. The never-surveyed Egyptian Eastern Desert ophiolites and the Saudi Shield ophiolites both stand at 0.89, and the assessment does not separate them. No play exceeds 0.06 for a preserved accumulation, because trap and preservation are unmeasured everywhere.

Eight research actions are then ranked by the information each returns per working day. Two shield soil-gas surveys and a re-screening of legacy mud-gas records lead and cannot be separated on the central inputs. A negative survey would leave its play at 0.71, or at about one half if the base-rate odds are overstated fourfold or surveys detect at 0.90, so the value of a survey rises as confidence in the base rate falls. Existing petroleum and mining law can license the surveys wherever an instrument could be identified.