Hydrogen isotope type‐curves of very hot crude oils

Abstract

Several crude oil accumulations in the Pannonian Basin are trapped in uncommonly hot (>170°C) reservoirs. Their maturities range from mature to very mature on the basis of cracking parameters of their biological marker homologous series (ratio of products to reactants). A stable carbon isotopic study of these oils, poor in biological markers commonly used for correlation purposes, did not provide a reliable oil-to-oil correlation. As an alternative tool, the hydrogen isotope compositions of oil fractions separated on the basis of different polarities were measured, and hydrogen isotope type-curves were generated for a set of mature to very mature crude oil samples. This method of presenting hydrogen isotope composition of fractions as type-curves is novel. Nineteen samples (17 crude oils from SE-Hungary, 1 oil condensate and 1 artificial oil) were chosen for the present study. The aim was to examine the applicability of hydrogen isotope type-curves in oil-to-oil correlation and to test the simultaneous application of carbon and hydrogen isotope type-curves in the field of petroleum geochemistry. We have shown that, although the conventionally used co-variation plots proved to be inadequate for the correlation of these hot and mature oils, the simultaneous use of carbon and the newly introduced hydrogen isotope type-curves allows us to group and distinguish oils of different origins.