Hydrocarbon charging of the Ordovician reservoirs in Tahe-Lunnan area, China

Abstract

The Tahe-Lunnan hydrocarbon province is China’s largest region with oil-and-gas-producing marine carbonate rocks. However, in terms of multi-source hydrocarbon generation, multi-episode reservoir adjustment and reconstruction, it remains unsettled how to determine the geological period of primary hydrocarbon filling of the Ordovician reservoir in this region. Based on the analysis of distribution and properties of reservoir, hydrocarbon filling of the Cambrian source rocks in the Late Caledon stage has largely been destroyed. However, hydrocarbon filling of the Middle Ordovician source rocks in the Early Carboniferous resulted in the major body of crude oil. During the charging process, the hydrocarbons were oxidatively degraded to heavy oil due to the poor closure conditions, which is corroborated by homogenization temperature of inclusions. Moreover, the capturing of hydrocarbon inclusions with high-temperature does not represent the filling of mature petroleum in the later period, but represents the result of the natural gas containing light fraction. Therefore, the Tahe-Lunnan area underwent two hydrocarbon filling processes, and the invasion of excessive dry gas led to a gas-washing fractionation upon the original Ordovician reservoirs.