MENA Oil vs. Topography

Looking at the map of the MENA region that Mama Pugs linked us to, the green regions are clearly near the major waterways because not that surprisingly, water tends to congregate in relatively low places.  These places have been inhabited by humans for tens of thousands of years, and it is there in Sumeria that the first sophisticated human cultures are said to have sprung up.  The areas are rich in culture and history, and still densely populated.  Most of the major oil-producing regions are in these fertile valleys and coastal areas, and as I see it, that is for two reasons:

One, oil is a liquid.  That being true, it will try to flow to the lowest possible place.  Seeing as the Earth's mantle is pretty impassable, those low spots are determined by where the mantle is or isn't.  As anyone who has studied plate tectonics knows, mountains are made when the mantle forces pieces of the crust to collide, and they both turn up.  Thus, the mantle is higher than average.  As a matter of fact, the same thing could be said of almost anywhere there is land sticking out of the water on Earth.  Thus, oil tends to flow and collect wherever the measured elevation is low.  So low altitude means more oil, as is reinforced by the maps.

Two, (which is a bit more of a stretch), the oil has been discovered in lowlands and in the Persian Gulf.  Perhaps that might be because it's a lot easier to drill for oil in water-churned sediment than mountains?  Nobody wants to drill through an extra 3000 feet of rock, so of course no oil has been discovered under the mountainous regions.  It would be expensive to find, gather, and transport.  Instead, companies have stuck with just finding oil in more cost-effective places, in order to make more profit.