当阳复向斜上组合生烃潜力及其含油气系统

当阳复向斜上组合存在志留系、二叠系及下三叠统三套烃源层，以碳酸盐岩及泥质岩为主。以志留系底部厚约５０ｍ的黑色页岩生油条件最好，在王家湾剖面有机碳含量平均达３．７７％；次为二叠系碳酸盐岩，全区有机碳平均含量为０．３６％。干酪根碳同位素特征和扫描电特征均显示该区烃源岩母质类型主要为Ⅰ型和Ⅱ型。有机质热演化程度普遍较高，应以天然气勘探为主。利用“二维源岩评价系统”软件进行了盆地模拟，三套烃源层的累积生烃     

甘肃西部及邻区区域地质特征与油气勘探方向

按板块构造观点，甘肃西部及邻区可划为中部华北—塔里木板块、北部兴蒙—天山板块和南部祁连—阿尔金板块３个一级、６个二级和９个三级构造单元。依基底性质可分为前寒武纪结晶基底和古生代褶皱基底两大类６个区。区内中新生界盆地有４种类型：陆内裂谷盆地、碰撞带内裂谷盆地、山前裂谷盆地和碰撞带内压性盆地。石炭—二叠系、侏罗系和白垩系为本区油气勘探主要目的层，随盆地的发育成为不同的有利勘探目标与方向。     

Israel's petroleum discovery curve

Oil exploration in Israel began in 1953. Until 1991 a total of 263 exploration wells and 122 development wells were drilled, 3 oil fields and 5 gas fields were discovered, and 4 noncommercial oil discoveries and 1 noncommercial gas discovery were made. Proven in-place reserves amount to 70 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMBOE). Exploration focused on six main plays: Syrian Arc anticlines; Mesozoic platform-edge, structural-stratigraphic traps; the Dead Sea graben; Early Mesozoic structures; Saqiye Group biogenic gas; and Hula Group biogenic gas. The more significant discoveries are associated with the first two plays. Ninety percent of the proven reserves were discovered by the first 71 wildcats, which constitute 27 percent of all wildcats drilled to date. During this phase of exploration, the average success was 7 percent, and the average discovery rate was 0.88 MMBOE per wildcat. Most of the following 192 wildcats were dry holes. If, as experts claim, significant reserves are still undiscovered, previous exploration must be deemed inefficient. The quantitative model of the discovery process also leads to such an assessment.     

A petroleum discovery-rate forecast revisited—The problem of field growth

A forecast of the future rates of discovery of crude oil and natural gas for the 123,027-km² Miocene/Pliocene trend in the Gulf of Mexico was made in 1980. This forecast was evaluated in 1988 by comparing two sets of data: (1) the actual versus the forecasted number of fields discovered, and (2) the actual versus the forecasted volumes of crude oil and natural gas discovered with the drilling of 1,820 wildcat wells along the trend between January 1, 1977, and December 31, 1985. The forecast specified that this level of drilling would result in the discovery of 217 fields containing 1.78 billion barrels of oil equivalent; however, 238 fields containing 3.57 billion barrels of oil equivalent were actually discovered. This underestimation is attributed to biases introduced by field growth and, to a lesser degree, the artificially low, pre-1970's price of natural gas that prevented many smaller gas fields from being brought into production at the time of their discovery; most of these fields contained less than 50 billion cubic feet of producible natural gas.     

羌塘盆地昂达尔错白云岩古油藏地质特征及成藏条件

昂达尔错白云岩古油藏位于羌塘盆地南羌塘坳陷,是羌塘盆地规模最大的古油藏带,对该区油气勘探具有重要意义。依据铸体薄片、储层物性、沥青族组分分析,剖析了白云岩古油藏地质特征。分析结果表明,昂达尔错古油藏的储集体可归类为低孔—低渗型到中孔—中渗型储层,为较好储层类型;其石油族组分呈现饱和烃含量低、非烃+沥青质含量高的特征,为芳香沥青型、芳香环烷型石油。划分出两套生储盖组合,其中的下侏罗统曲色组—中侏罗统布曲组组合为较好的生储盖组合类型,具有较好的勘探远景。认为古油藏在晚侏罗世成藏,在喜马拉雅期遭受逆冲破坏。     

The present-day state of tectonic stress in the Darling Basin,Australia: Implications for exploration and production

Knowledge of the full present-day stress tensor and pore pressure has significant applications in the exploration and production of conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs. The Darling Basin of New South Wales, Australia, is an old sedimentary basin (Late Cambrian/Silurian to Early Carboniferous) in which there was limited information about the present-day stress field prior to this study. In this paper we evaluate the contemporary stress field of the Darling Basin using a dataset from recent exploration wells and perform a geomechanical risk assessment with respect to borehole stability, fracture/fault generation and reactivation. Our interpretations of borehole failures in borehole image logs reveal a prevailing east-west orientation of the maximum horizontal stress throughout the Darling Basin. The estimates of the magnitudes for the vertical, minimum and maximum horizontal stress in the studied wells indicate a transition between thrust and strike-slip faulting stress regime at 600–700 m depths, where the magnitude of vertical stress and minimum horizontal stress are close to each other. However, the presence of borehole breakouts and drilling-induced tensile fractures, that we observe in the image logs at greater depths (900–2100 m) indicate a transition into a strike-slip tectonic stress regime below a depth range of approximately 700–900 m. These findings are in agreement with overcoring stress measurements east and west of the investigated wells. Furthermore, there are several Neogene-to-Recent geological structures in the study area that indicate thrust faulting with an east-west oriented maximum horizontal stress orientation around this old sedimentary basin. The consistency between the orientation of maximum horizontal stress determined from wellbore data and neotectonic structures is significant, and implies that horizontal stress orientations derived from very recent geological features may be valuable inputs to geomechanical models in the absence of wellbore or other data. However, the recent surface geological structures suggest a thrust faulting stress regime that is in slight contrast to the transition between thrust and strike-slip stress regime (S_H > S_h ∼ S_v) indicated by petroleum data, and highlights a potential pitfall of using neotectonic structures in geomechanical models. In particular, careful attention and verification should be made when using neotectonic structures for input, calibration or confirmation of geomechanical models, especially in intraplate tectonic settings such as Australia.     

Provenance of Triassic sandstones on the southwest Barents Shelf and the implication for sediment dispersal patterns in northwest Pangaea

Thick Triassic siliciclastic units form major reservoir targets for hydrocarbon exploration on the Barents Shelf; however, poor reservoir quality, possibly associated with variation in provenance, remains a key risk factor in the area. In this study, sandstone dispersal patterns on the southwest Barents Shelf are investigated through petrographic and heavy mineral analysis, garnet and rutile geochemistry and zircon U-Pb geochronology. The results show that until the Early Norian Maximum Flooding Surface, two contrasting sand types were present: (i) a Caledonian Sand Type, characterised by a high compositional maturity, a heavy mineral assemblage dominated by garnet and low chrome-spinel:zircon (CZi) values, predominantly metapelitic rutiles and mostly Proterozoic and Archaean detrital zircon ages, interpreted to be sourced from the Caledonides, and (ii) a Uralian Sand Type, characterised by a low compositional maturity, high CZi values, predominantly metamafic rutiles and Carboniferous zircon ages, sourced from the Uralian Orogeny. In addition, disparity in detrital zircon ages of the Uralian Sand Type with contiguous strata on the northern Barents Shelf reveals the presence of a Northern Uraloid Sand Type, interpreted to have been sourced from Taimyr and Severnaya Zemlya. As such, a coincidental system is inferred which delivered sand to the Northern Barents Shelf in the late Carnian/early Norian. Following the Early Norian Maximum Flooding Surface, a significant provenance change occurs. In response to Late Triassic/Early Jurassic hinterland rejuvenation, supply from the Uralian Orogen ceased and the northern Scandinavian (Caledonian) source became dominant, extending northwards out on to the southwest Barents Shelf. The data reveal a link between reservoir quality and sand type and illustrate how provenance played an important role in the development of clastic reservoirs within the Triassic of the Barents Shelf.     

Petroleum generation characteristics of heterogeneous source rock from Chia Gara formation in the Kurdistan region,northern Iraq as inferred by bulk and quantitative pyrolysis techniques

This study is the first attempt which provides information regarding the bulk and quantitative pyrolysis results of the Chia Gara Formation from the Kurdistan region, northern Iraq. Ten representative early-mature to mature samples from the Chia Gara Formation were investigated for TOC contents, Rock Eval pyrolysis, pyrolysis-GC and bulk kinetic parameters. These analyses were used to characterize the petroleum generated during thermal maturation of the Chia Gara source rock and to clarify the quantity of the organic matter and its effect on the timing of petroleum generation.Pyrolysis HI data identified two organic facies with different petroleum generation characteristics; Type II–III kerogen with HI values of >250 mg HC/g TOC, and Type III kerogen with HI values < 100 mg HC/g TOC. These types of kerogen can generate liquid HCs and gas. This is supported by the products of pyrolysis–gas chromatography (Py–GC) analysis of the extracted rock samples. Pyrolysis products show a dominance of a marine organic matter with variable contributions from terrestrial organic matter (Types II–III and III kerogen), and produces mainly paraffinic-naphthenic-aromatic low wax oils with condensate and gas.Bulk kinetic analysis of the Chia Gara source rock indicates a heterogeneous organic matter assemblage, typical of restricted marine environments in general. The activation energy distributions reveal relatively broad and high values, ranging from 40 to 64 kcal/mol with pre-exponential factors varying from 2.2835 E+12/sec to 4.0920 E+13/sec. The predicted petroleum formation temperature of onset (TR 10%) temperatures ranges from 110 to 135 °C, and peak generation temperatures (geological T_max) between 137 °C and 152 °C. The peak generation temperatures reach a transformation ratio in the range of 42–50% TR, thus the Chia Gara source rock could have generated and expelled significant quantities of petroleum hydrocarbons in the Kurdistan of Iraq.     

Forecasting rates of hydrocarbon discoveries in a changing economic environment

A method is presented for the estimation of undiscovered oil and gas resources in partially explored areas where economic truncation has caused some discoveries to go unreported; therefore distorting the relationship between the observed discovery size distribution and the parent or ultimate field size distribution. The method is applied to the UK's northern and central North Sea provinces. A discovery process model is developed to estimate the number and size distribution of undiscovered fields in this area as of 1983. The model is also used to forecast the rate at which fields will be discovered in the future. The appraisal and forecasts pertain to fields in size classes as small as 24 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE). Estimated undiscovered hydrocarbon resources of 11.79 billion BOE are expected to be contained in 170 remaining fields. Over the first 500 wildcat wells after 1 January 1983, the discovery rate in this areas is expected to decline by 60% from 15 million BOE per wildcat well to six million BOE per wildcat well.     

Fault linkage patterns and their control on the formation of the petroleum systems of the Erlian Basin, Eastern China

Fault linkage patterns in rift basins are very common. While the process of fault linkage may be very short, it changes sedimentation patterns before and after linkage and controls the development of half-grabens. The propagation and growth of boundary faults can be divided into a simple fault propagation pattern and a fault growth-linkage pattern. Based on structural style, sedimentation patterns and oil-source correlations in the Erlian Basin, three types of grabens and petroleum systems can be identified. The Abei graben is controlled by a single boundary fault and forms an independent petroleum system. The Saihantala graben is controlled by several linked faults, which also has an independent petroleum system. The Wuliyasitai Depression controlled by two boundary fault segments which results in two petroleum systems. As not all half-grabens develop one petroleum system; they may, therefore, have two or more systems. The relay ramps between fault segments before linkage are the locations of deposition of sands and conglomerates, and consequently, are the focus areas for stratigraphic–lithologic trap exploration.