P41-MO USING HETEROCOMPOUNDS AND STABLE ISOTOPES TO QUANTIFY AND PREDICT ALTERATION PROCESSES IN PETROLEUM RESERVOIRS

• Main Authors: Raingard M. Haberer, Andrea Vieth, Heinz Wilkes, O Di Primio
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Norwegian Sea
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.543.5721; http://www.imog2007.org/files/Monday Posters/Monday Posters Reservoir and production geochemistry/P41-MO Haberer.pdf

Post-filling alteration through biotic and abiotic effects is a major risk in many shallow petroleum prospects. Once petroleum is trapped in a structure, these processes (e.g. biodegradation and –synthesis, water washing, gas stripping and gravity segregation) generally have strong economic consequences since they lead to a decrease in oil quality and reduce the total volume of petroleum in place. The overall goal of our new Industry-Partnership-Program project “In Reservoir Alteration Dynamics (INRAD)”, which started in December 2006, is to develop integrated models for predicting and quantifying the extent of such post-filling alteration processes in shallow prospects. Therefore the vertical and lateral variability of petroleum composition within different reservoirs e.g. in the Norwegian Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Brazil will be characterised, evaluated and interpreted at high resolution. In this context the reservoir architecture, its compartmentalisation and filling history through geological time as well as the timing, rate and extent of alteration processes are important elements. In the three-phase system rock-water-petroleum one of the basic controls on compositional alteration during migration is the variable partitioning behaviour of various