The calculation of hydrocarbon-generating temperature — Theory and practice

How to quantitatively evaluate the maturity of crude oils is still an open question. Mango discovered a remarkable compositional invariance of four isoheptane ratios in crude oils, and proposed a steady-state catalytic model for the origin of light hydrocarbons. According to this model, 2,4/2,3 dimethylpentane ratio is a pure temperature parameter. Bement, Mango et al. established the functional equation between the two parameters--light hydrocarbon temperature and burial temperature and applied it to the calculation of hydrocarbon-generating temperature, which provided a new choice for the study of oil maturity. In this paper, the Mango＇s parameters for hydrocarbons from the Tazhong area were calculated, the average K1 value is 1.06, which is in good consistency with the Mango＇s proposal that the K1 value is relatively stable. Calculated with the functional formula of hydrocarbon-generating temperature, the hydrocarbon-generating temperatures are with the range of 120-129℃, and the converted vitrinite reflectance （Ro） varies from 0.88% to 0.90%. This is well consistent with the maturity characteristics of neohopanes. The results have verified the reliability of this method.