Document

Diagenesis and reservoir quality of the Neoproterozoic Ara carbonates in the South Oman Salt Basin.

Source
Master's thesis
Other titles
التغيرات اللاحقة وجودة الخزانات الكربوناتية لحقبة ي النيوبرتيرويك لمجموعة آرا في الحوض الملحي الجنوبي لسلطنة عمان
Country
Oman
City
Muscat
Publisher
Sultan Qaboos University
Gregorian
2023
Language
English
Thesis Type
Master's thesis
English abstract
Intra-salt carbonate stringers are distributed in different basins around the world and play a significant role as source rock, reservoir, and seal in the petroleum systems of these basins. The Ara intra-salt carbonates are one of the most important petroleum systems in the Interior Oman Salt Basins. The Intra-salt carbonate stringers belong to the Ara Group composed of six, third-order cycles of evaporites and carbonates. The intra-salt carbonate stringers reservoir lithofacies are microbial laminate, different types of grainstones, and thrombolitic boundstone. The main risk facing the hydrocarbon production from the stringers of the Ara carbonates is the pore-filling halite cement in some areas of the South Oman Salt Basin (SOSB). Understanding the diagenetic effect is essential to predict the reservoir quality. This study aims to improve the understanding of the diagenesis and reservoir quality of the Ara carbonates in the Birba and Harweel clusters. This study is based on subsurface data from five wells, B in the Birba Cluster and D1, D2, M, and R in the Harweel Cluster. Fifty-three blue epoxy-impregnated and stained thin sections were described under microscopy. The diagenesis alterations and porosity were quantified using the point counting technique by counting 500 points in each thin section. Ten representative samples from the Harweel Cluster were analyzed under scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis to study the paragenetic sequence, porosity, and chemical composition of the grains. The X-ray diffraction method was applied to 10 samples to estimate their mineralogy. The inductive coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy was done on 7 samples from halite and anhydrite cementations to analyze their chemical compositions. The porosity and permeability were studied using fifty-three thin sections, SEM analysis on ten samples, core porosity, and permeability measurements from 308 samples, and wireline logging data from the five wells. Ara carbonates in the Birba and Harweel clusters were affected but in different amounts by diagenetic processes. For instance, micritization, dolomitization, replacement of dolomite by evaporitic minerals, pore and fracture-filling halite, anhydrite, and solid bitumen, silicification, pyritization, several dissolution events, mechanical and chemical compactions, and two generations of fractures (opened and cemented fractures). Additional authigenic minerals were found only in the samples of the Harweel Cluster, including phosphorus-rich carbonate, strontianite, and illite. The number of replacive evaporites, and cementation by halite, anhydrite, and solid bitumen, as well as silicification, was more in the Harweel than in the Birba Cluster. The reservoirs in the Birba Cluster have a better reservoir quality than the Ara carbonate reservoirs in the Harweel Cluster in which their pore spaces are not strongly plugged with halite, anhydrite, and solid bitumen. Among the lithofacies associations in the Harweel Cluster, the vii intertidal, and slope basin lithofacies associations are characterized by higher porosity than the rest of the lithofacies associations. The lithofacies with lower porosity values in the Harweel Cluster, including shallow subtidal, open marine thrombolites, shoal, and offshore transition zone lithofacies association are affected mostly by the pore-filling halite (most dominant), anhydrite, and solid bitumen which in turn reduce their reservoir quality.
Category
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