LAW OF SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF OIL AND GAS FIELDS

• Published in: Izvestiya Tomskogo Politekhnicheskogo Universiteta Inziniring Georesursov
• Main Author: Valery R. Livshits
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: Tomsk Polytechnic University 2020
• Subjects: petroleum province; hydrocarbon accumulations; pools; fields; probabilistic distribution of sizes of oil and gas pools and fields; classical pareto distribution; truncated pareto distribution; Engineering geology. Rock mechanics. Soil mechanics. Underground construction; TA703-712; Pechora
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.18799/24131830/2020/6/2673; https://doaj.org/article/53915aa5f6984374b5df0fd57a86da0e

Relevance of the study is related to the extremely important role played by the probabilistic distribution of the sizes of oil and gas fields (truncated Pareto distribution) in the quantitative prediction of petroleum potential in both mature and immature basins. Using this distribution it is easy to forecast the quantity and total hydrocarbon resources in any given size interval as well as the forecast of the sizes of undiscovered oil and gas pools and the succession of their discoveries. The aim of the study is to obtain the respective probability distribution of oil and gas fields using the law of the size distribution of oil and gas pools (truncated Pareto distribution). Methods: analytical methods of probability theory, statistical test method, statistical processing of empirical data. Object: petroleum basins, oil and gas reserves of pools and fields, number of pools in each field, laws governing the distribution of the sizes of oil and gas fields. Results. It was shown that the power-law probability distribution (the classical Pareto distribution, the truncated Pareto distribution) cannot be used as the distribution of sizes of both oil and gas fields and pools. By using statistical testing procedures, the conditional probabilistic distributions of the sizes of oil and gas fields were obtained for a fixed number of pools. Based on the processing of empirical data for four largest petroleum provinces of Russia (Volga-Ural, West Siberian, Timan-Pechora and North Caucasian), we obtained estimates of the distribution of the number of oil and gas pools in each field. The law governing the distribution of the sizes of oil and gas fields was obtained using the law of size distribution of oil and gas pools (truncated Pareto distribution). It was shown that this probability distribution, not being, strictly speaking, a power law, turns out to be very close to it.