Natural hydrogen in the Middle East and North Africa: Geological prospectivity, global analogues, and a play-based exploration roadmap

Natural hydrogen, free molecular H 2 generated by water-rock reaction and radioactive decay, has moved from curiosity to exploration target since production began at Bourakébougou, Mali. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) hosts several settings that generate H 2 elsewhere, yet has attracted little dedicated study. This review assesses the region as eleven plays from a documented literature search, each with a chance of detectable surface expression and of a preserved accumulation, given as screening estimates. The Egyptian case rests on the base rate: no hydrogen measurement has been published from an Egyptian ophiolite, so its chance, about 0.9 (80 % interval 0.8–0.9), comes from the record of surveyed ultramafic massifs, 20 of 21 positive where the outcome is clear, audited against primary texts where obtainable. That base rate, 0.95, is likely biased upward; counting the indeterminate massifs as negative gives 0.69. On the central inputs no single soil-gas survey reverses a decision: a negative Egyptian survey would leave the play at about 0.7, above the assumed threshold of one half. The decisive uncertainty is therefore the base rate, and reducing it is the research priority. Soil-gas surveys of the Egyptian and Saudi ophiolites and a re-screening of legacy mud-gas records are tied on expected information per working day at stated efforts. On central grades no play reaches a median chance of a preserved accumulation of 0.1; trap and preservation are unmeasured everywhere. Existing petroleum and mining law can license the surveys where an instrument could be identified.