It is located about 265 kilometres (165 mi) north of the company headquarters in Dhahran on the coast of the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia.

When Saudi Arabia's oil production peaked in 1980–1981, Safaniya was producing over 1.5 million barrels per day.

The Safaniya is also Saudi Arabia's primary supplier of heavy oil at an average API gravity of 27.

It is a series of structures trending NW-SE caused by uplift movement due to the Zagros reverse fault.

Regional tectonic events such as compression occurred along eastern part of the Zagros belt during the Campanian which caused uplift and minor erosion of the Wasia Formation.

In between Middle Eocene to Miocene, there was a stop in deposition events due to structural growth and non-deposition in the area.

[7] Saudi Arabia covers a large part of the Arabian Basin which is the primary producer of oil and gas.

δ 13C = - 27.1‰) [8] The typical seal rock in the Mesozoic petroleum system that separates the Jurassic oils from mixing with the Cretaceous oils is a permeable evaporites anhydrite with a thickness reaching up to 287 m. The seal is not well developed along the eastern and northeastern part of Saudi Arabia.

The Safaniya member is a thick sequence of sandstone, siltstone and shale with thin intervals of limestone, coal and varying amounts of ironstone.

The Tuwaiq Mountain source rock reached early stage maturity for oil generation at about 100 Ma and continued to attain its peak oil expulsion in the deeply buried areas at Early Tertiary time, approximately during a period of 65-54 Ma.