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Thermal modeling of petroleum source rocks

Ludwig Koketso

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Summary

Development of basin modeling programs began in the 1980s, initially by building just 1D models, with the main aim of heat flow simulation. Later model upgrades incorporated geochemical models enabling basin temperature history to be calculated and allowing source rock maturity evaluation. The models have since evolved to model up to 3D level or 4D if the time dimension is considered. Simulation of the maturation of kerogen is no easy task as the reactions formed from the thermal maturation of kerogen are complex and cannot easily be defined. Workers keep formulating new and improved kinetic models ever since the publication of the Lopatin (TTI method) in order to closer mimic the chemical reactions involved in kerogen degradation. As such there are several kinetic models available to-date to choose from. The aim of this study is to follow the processes and parameters involved in modeling the maturation of organic matter in source rocks.This work includes a case study to scrutinize the hydrocarbon potential of the hypothetical F_well (.) petroleum system source rocks and related processes. This was carried out using the PetroMod (1D) version 2017.1 software. There is limited geological knowledge of the petroleum system except for the well log data and some inferred information on the erosional history and thrusting in the regional area of where the well was drilled.Measured values of vitrinite reflectance as well as vitrinite reflectance values calculated from Tmax (from pyrolysis data)were used tovalidation the model. The Easy%Ro as is default in the PetroMod version 2017.1 was applied for vitrinite reflectance calculations. Pepper and Corvi, (1995) model was chosen to calculate the kinetics. Geochemical analysis of the pyrolysis data from Rock_Eval measurements revealed the Layer 4 and Layer 5 sediments of the F_well (.) petroleum system have type II, type II/III and type III kerogens, and the TOC (%) range of the source rocks is from 0.19-3.83 with an average of 1.35% indicating poor to fair source rocks. The geochemical analysis allows better appropriation of petroleum system elements (at least the source rocks) in the PetroMod software. The combined effects of the burial and thermal history conditions were evaluated and the petroleum potential of the sediments surrounding F-well was calculated.

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