Abstract
Accurate assessment of the preservation of crude oils is essential for evaluating the economics of deep petroleum accumulations. This paper describes a multicomponent kinetics model which calculates the extent of cracking, API gravity, GOR, and composition of reservoired oils as a function of the initial oil composition, residence time, and thermal/burial history of the reservoir. This model uses the program PMOD developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) as the software platform. It contains ten petroleum components; the density and composition of each component was determined based on literature data. Its reaction network contains seven cracking reactions with activation energies ( E) that range from 37.1 to 80.0 kcal/mol and Arrhenius factors ( A) from 3.838E21 to 2.844E34 my −1. A reaction network was created for a waxy oil and one for a nonwaxy oil by using the published IFP experimental data as calibration. A method was developed to derive the input oil composition by combining data from reservoir fluid analysis, liquid chromatography, and whole-oil gas chromatography. Several output examples are presented. In addition, field data from the Jurassic Smackover Trend in northern Gulf of Mexico are used to test and demonstrate the application of the model. The present model may be used not only to model oil cracking but to identify secondary alteration (such as biodegradation and fractionation) in reservoired oils. Future research is needed to test the sensitivity of the parameters, to create reaction networks for other types of oils, and to incorporate the pressure effect into the model.
Published Version
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