Yongfeng Zhu

Geology and hydrocarbon accumulation of the large ultra-deep Rewapu oilfield in Tarim basin, China

Over the past five years, oil and gas exploration to marine facies carbonate rock in China took on a fast-growing tendency, and a lot of large-scale oil and gas fields were discovered in succession. Particularly in the north of Tarim Basin, the large-scale Rewapu oil field was recently discovered in the Ordovician carbonate rock layer system with buried depth of 7,000 meters, manifesting that a significant potential of exploration exists in Tarim Basins deep layer and ultra deep layer of Tarim basin. The results indicate that reservoirs of Rewapu oilfield are low porosity and low permeability layers karst reservoirs, reservoir temperature is around at 160 °C with oil, and the crude oil comes from the upper Ordovician source rock of the Manjaer depression. The hydrocarbon accumulation time is in the Late Permian, and since the Triassic sedimentation, the reservoir is in the continuous process of burying. It belongs to the old oil and gas system. Due to low geothermal gradient and late quick deep burial, oil reservoir has yet to be cracked, so well-preserved old oil reservoir can be discovered at the depth of 7000 m. The Ordovician carbonate reservoir in Rewapu was a fracture-cavity oil reservoir, and the oil and gas distribution and enrichment are controlled not by the local structure, but by the distribution and the development degree of Ordovician carbonate reservoir. The reservoirs of Rewapu block are mainly distributed in the Ordovician Yijianfang formation and at the top Yingshan formation, and the reservoir development degree was controlled by the karstification, the degree of fracture development and the sedimentation facies, concentrating into belts in plane and not controlling by the depth vertically. The overlying strata are limestone of Tumuxiuke formation and marls and limestone of Sangtamu formation in the upper Ordovician. Rewapu oil reservoir features stratified oil and mainly contains normal oil with low viscosity and high wax. Research results show that Ordovician reservoirs in Rewapu block have relatively large depth of burial, but they are still favorable in quality and sit along the path for the oil and gass northward migration. Therefore, this block has immense resources potential and boasts good exploration and development outlook. In this paper, we study Rewapu block oil reservoirs geological features and hydrocarbon accumulation mechanism, which is of important significance for directing the exploration to oil and gas at the deep layer and ultra deep layer of Tarim Basin.

Geological features and hydrocarbon accumulation in the Xinken oil field, Tarim Basin

Recently, a large-scale Ordovician oil and gas pool has been discovered in Xinken, north of the Tarim Basin, and it has strongly heterogeneous reservoirs and complicated fluid distribution. Through analyzing oil, gas and water samples collected from this area, in combination of field production and testing data, this study reveals that the Xinken oil pool contains dominantly normal oil characterized by low viscosity, low sulphur, and high wax. It has a low content of natural gas, which presents typical characteristics of wet gas and is oil-associated gas. Oil-gas correlation shows that the oil was from the Middle-Upper Ordovician source rocks and the charge and accumulation of oil and gas took place in the Late Hercynian Period. Controlled by paleogeomorphology, sedimentary facies, ancient karstification, faults, and other factors in the Caledonian Period, the Ordovician carbonate reservoirs are dominated by dissolved pores, cavities and fractures. The reservoir body of fractures and cavities is distributed in the shape of strip and laminate along faults and excellent reservoirs are mostly in the range of 70–100 m below the top of the Yijianfang Formation. As a whole, the Xinken oil pool is a fracture-cavity pool controlled by interbedded karst reservoirs and is a complex composed of stacked karst fractures and cavities of various sizes. It contains oil in large areas horizontally, which is quasi-laminated in distribution, and the accumulation of oil and gas is controlled by the distribution and development degree of the Ordovician carbonate reservoirs. The study shows that this area has abundant resources and a great exploration potential for oil and gas.