Application of Analytical Techniques to Petroleum Systems
Cutting-edge techniques have always been utilized in petroleum exploration and production to reduce costs and improve efficiencies. The demand for petroleum in the form of oil and gas is expected to increase for electricity production, transport and chemical production, largely driven by an increase in energy consumption in the developing world. Innovations in analytical methods will continue to play a key role in the industry moving forwards as society shifts towards lower carbon energy systems and more advantaged oil and gas resources are targeted. This volume brings together new analytical approaches and describes how they can be applied to the study of petroleum systems. The papers within this volume cover a wide range of topics and case studies, in the fields of fluid and isotope geochemistry, organic geochemistry, imaging and sediment provenance. The work illustrates how the current, state-of-the-art technology can be effectively utilised to address ongoing challenges in petroleum geoscience.
Comparing organic-hosted and intergranular pore networks: topography and topology in grains, gaps and bubbles
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Published:October 19, 2020
Abstract
The relationship between pore structures was examined using a combination of normalized topographical and topological measurements in two qualitatively different pore systems: organic-hosted porosity, common in unconventional shale reservoirs; and intergranular porosity, common in conventional siliciclastic reservoirs. The organic-hosted pore network was found to be less well connected than the intergranular pore network, with volume-weighted coordination numbers of 1.16 and 8.14 for organic-hosted and intergranular pore systems, respectively. This disparity in coordination number was explained by differences in the pore shapes that are caused by variations in the geological processes associated with the generation of the pore network. Measurements of pore shape showed that the pores in the organic-hosted network were both significantly more spherical and had a more positive curvature distribution than the pores present within the intergranular network. The impact of such changes in pore shape on pore-network connectivity was examined by creating a suite of synthetic pore geometries using both erosion/dilation of the existing network and image-guided object-based methods. Coordination number, Euler characteristic and aggregate porosity analyses performed on these synthetic networks showed that organic-type pore networks become connected at much higher aggregate porosities (35–50%) than intergranular-type pore networks (5–10%).
- aliphatic hydrocarbons
- alkanes
- arenite
- Argentina
- Central Europe
- clastic rocks
- connectivity
- coordination
- Cretaceous
- diagenesis
- dilation
- electron diffraction data
- electron microscopy data
- equations
- erosion
- Europe
- geometry
- Germany
- heterogeneity
- hydrocarbons
- instruments
- Jurassic
- lithofacies
- Lower Cretaceous
- Lower Jurassic
- maturity
- measurement
- Mesozoic
- methane
- natural gas
- organic compounds
- petroleum
- porosity
- processes
- properties
- qualitative analysis
- quartz arenite
- recovery
- reservoir rocks
- sandstone
- sedimentary rocks
- SEM data
- shale
- shale gas
- siliciclastics
- South America
- sphericity
- three-dimensional models
- topography
- topology
- Triassic
- two-dimensional models
- Upper Triassic
- Vaca Muerta Formation
- variations
- Bentheimer Sandstone
- EBSD data