Fluid, petroleum history

In spite of the ubiquity and technological importance of the vitreous state, the literature of our profession is quite thin on the subject. In part this is because many of the important technical problems that chemical engineers have so successfully solved in the past have been closely related to the petroleum industry and, hence, involve primarily physical and chemical transformations that take place in fluids. Glasses, moreover, being structurally liquid-like but mechanically solid, and having history-dependent properties that nevertheless can persist unchanged over geological times, fall... 

The two extremes, using instantaneous and cumulative phase predictions discussed above, provide only the framework for the total variability, which can be expected in the reservoir filling history studied here. Unravelling the evolution of petroleum fluid compositions in the Snorre Field through time would require a model resolution far exceeding what can be handled in reasonable computing time. The approach shown allows, however, a prediction of fluid properties, which is much closer to the natural fluid compositions than previously possible. This compositional kinetic scheme is the first of its kind to allow reasonable petroleum phase behaviour assessment in the simulation of basin evolution and hydrocarbon migration. 

Fig. 9. The temperature for fluid inclusion formation in quartz is translated into time using the burial history of Smorbukk crestal well 6506/12-1 (Figs 2 27). Oil occurred in Smorbukk at least as early as 70-50 Ma bp. The biomarkers in the inclusions are similar to those found in Halten Vest (see Fig. 24). Inclusion formation is exponential in temperature (see insert) and the GOR is set at the time of inclusion closure. Biomarkers will in contrast represent an average, though biased towards the earliest low maturity oil as such oil contains far higher absolute concentrations of biomarkers than do more mature and high GOR petroleums like condensates .

Isaksen, G.H., Rottorf, R.J., Jenssen, A.I. (1998) Correlation of fluid inclusions and reservoired oils to infer trap fill history in the South Viking Graben, North Sea. Petroleum Geoscience, 4,41-55. 

Volk, H., George, S.C., Killops, S.D., Lisk, M, Ahmed, M., Quezada, R.A. (2002) The use of fluid inclusion oils to reconstruct the charge history of petroleum reservoirs— an example from the Taranaki Basin. In Proceedings of the 2002 New Zealand Petroleum Conference, Crown Minerals, Auckland, pp. 221-233. 

O Brien, G.W., Lisk, M., Duddy, L, Eadington, R.J., Cadman, S., Fellows, M. (1996) Late Tertiary fluid migration in the Timor Sea a key control on thermal and diagenetic histories Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association Journal, 56(1), 399-427. 

Sweet wells do not contain hydrogen sulfide, whereas sour wells do. The source of CO2 can be mineral dissolution or a by-product of the petroleum-forming process. The source of H2S can be dissolution of mineral deposits in the rocks, a by-product of the petroleum-forming process, or bacterial action at any time in the history of the petroleum deposit. Oxygen always originates from air and can only come in contact with petroleum fluids after the recovery process begins. It does not exist in the undisturbed hydrocarbon deposit. 

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