Abstract
Twenty crude oils from Paleozoic reservoirs in the Big Horn Basin. Wyoming were fractionated into light hydrocarbons, saturates, monoaromatics. diaromatics, polyaromatics-and-polars. and asphaltenes. Amounts and isotopic composition of each fraction were found to be internally consistent with the degree of maturation of the oil. confirming the established single source origin for these oils. A variation of approximately three per mil in the carbon isotopic composition of the whole oil and individual fraction was explained as being caused by maturation. The isotope-type-curves for these oils, the variations in isotopic composition as a function of compound group-type, were not found to be as simple as commonly believed. Other alteration processes, such as migration and deasphalting, might have influenced the pattern of the isotope distributions among fractions. The conservative nature of mass balance and subsequent isotope flows among various fractions of crude oil showed that the maturation of crude oil consists of consecutive processes leading from larger and more polar components into smaller and less polar components culminating in natural gas. Calculations were made to project the amount of condensates associated with the crude oils, and the amount of natural gas which had been generated from crude oils of a given maturity.
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