Kuwait represents a structurally simple region of the Arabian platform in the actively subsiding foreland of the Zagros Mountains to the north and east. Principal structural features of Kuwait include two subsurface arches (Kuwait and Dibdibah) and the fault-bounded Wadi Al-Batin. Faults defining Wadi Al-Batin are related to Tertiary (less than 66 million years) extension in the region. The Kuwait and Dibdibah arches have no surface expression, whereas the younger Bahrah anticline and Ahmadi ridge have a geomorphic expression and are structurally superposed on the Kuwait arch. Major hydrocarbon accumulations are associated with the Kuwait arch.

The structural arches in Kuwait are part of a regional set of north-trending arches known as the Arabian folds, along which many of the most important oil fields in the Arabian Gulf are located. These arches are at least Middle Cretaceous (around 100 million years) in age. The orientation of the Arabian folds has been interpreted to be inherited from older structures in the Precambrian basement (more than 570 million years old), with possible amplification from salt diapirism. The north-south trends may continue northward beneath the Mesopotamian basin and the Zagros fold belt.

The northwest-trending anticlinal structures of the Ahmadi ridge and Bahrah anticline are younger than the Arabian folds. They are related to the Zagros collision initiated in post-Eocene times (less than 37 million years ago). These younger folds seem to have a second order control on the distribution of hydro carbon reservoirs in Kuwait, as oil wells are concentrated in northwest-trending belts across the north-striking Kuwait arch.

The Kuwait arch has a maximum structural relief in the region between Al-Burqan in the south and Al-Bahrah in the north. It has closed structural contours around the Wafrah, Burqan, Maqwa and Bahrah areas, and a partial closure indicating a domal structure beneath Kuwait City and Kuwait Bay. The superposition of the Kuwait arch and the shallow anticlinal structure of the Ahmadi ridge form a total structural relief of more than 1.6 kilometers long. The northwest trending Dibdibah arch represents another subsurface anticline in western Kuwait. The ridge is approximately 75 kilometers long, and is an isolated domal structure, but has not to date yielded any significant hydro-carbon reservoirs.

Wadi Al-Batin is a large valley, 7-10 kilometers wide and with relief up to 57 meters. In the upper area, the valley sides are steep, but in southwestern Kuwait few ravines have steep walls greater than five meters in height. It is over 75 kilometers in length within Kuwait, and extends 700 kilometers south-westward into western Saudi-Arabia where it is referred to as Wadi Ar-Rimah.

The ephemeral drainage in the wadi drains from the southwest, and has transported Quaternary and Tertiary gravels consisting of igneous, metamorphic and volcanic rock fragments from Saudi Arabia during Pleistocene pluvial episodes. The wadi widens toward the northeast, and it becomes indistinguishable from its surroundings northwest of Kuwait City. Ridges made of Dibdibah gravel define paleodrainage patterns of a delta system draining Wadi Al-Batin; many of these gravel ridges form prominent lineaments that are marked by faults on at least one side,suggesting structural control of the drainage pattern.al interpretation has been made of faults of the Wadi Al-Batin system using data from seismic reflection lines, electric logs, and hydrological pumping tests. Numerous small and several relatively large faults are revealed on the seismic reflection lines. Hydrological pumping tests show a break in the draw-down slope at the faults. It has been concluded that steep Miocene to late Eocene faults parallel to the wadi have displaced the block in the center of the wadi upwards by 25-35 meters relative to the strata outside the wadi, and that displacements die out toward the northeast. The structural interpretation also shows parallel faults outside the wadi, but these do not have any visible expression on Landsat images.