A major discovery in Permian volcanic rock gas reservoir exploration in the Sichuan Basin and its implications

Abstract

Recently, a high-yield gas flow of 22.5 × 104 m3/d was achieved in the wildcat well Yongtan 1, deployed by PetroChina Southwest Oil and Gasfield Company, and an extrusive facies volcaniclastic gas reservoir was first discovered in the Sichuan Basin, which is a major breakthrough in the exploration of volcanic rock gas reservoirs. In order to further evaluate the exploration potential in Permian volcanic rock gas reservoirs in this basin, we systematically reviewed and summarized the exploration process of volcanic rocks in this study area, as well as the characteristics of gas reservoirs of well Yongtan 1, the controlling factors and modes of hydrocarbon accumulation. The following findings were obtained. (1) Over the past five decades of gas exploration of volcanic rocks, the change of exploration thought and progress in seismic prediction contribute to a major discovery in this study area, i.e., the well location deployment of Yongtan 1 was determined in the Jianyan area, where the volcanic anomalies of the Permian developed outbursts are well developed and the gas reservoir conditions are favorable. This also proves that another new gas exploration area in this basin was found. (2) From the data of Yongtan 1, we found high-quality volcanic porous reservoirs with a thickness of over 100 m developed in the Permian strata, the effusive volcanic rock types dominated by breccia and tuffaceous breccia, reservoir space composed of dissolution pores, interbreccia dissolution pores, and other pores, the porosity of which is 6.68%–13.22% and 10.26% on average, the permeability 0.01–4.43 mD and 2.35 mD on average. (3) This abnormally high pressure gas reservoir was buried 4500–6000 m deep underground with the middle formation pressure being 125.625 MPa and the pressure coefficient being up to 2.22. Methane content in the minor H2S-bearing produced gas flow reached up to 99.03%. (4) Volcanic rocks in the Jianyang–Zhongjiang–Santai area are developed, and they are adjacent to the Cambrian high-quality source rocks in the Deyang–Anyue rifting. The early extensional deep faults play a role in connecting source and storage. There are many sets of caprocks, such as the Upper Permian Longtan Formation and Lower Triassic layered thick paste rocks, providing conditions for forming large-scale tectonic–lithologic composite trap gas reservoirs, and the favorable exploration area reaches up to 6000 km2. In conclusion, this major discovery not only proves that Permian volcanic rocks in the Sichuan Basin has large potential for oil and gas exploration, but reaffirms the confidence in changing our exploration thought, speeding up new exploration zones and areas, and discovering more and bigger gas fields.