Impact of Mineralogy and Diagenesis on Reservoir Quality of the Lower Cretaceous Upper Mannville Formation (Alberta, Canada)

Abstract

The Lower Cretaceous Upper Mannville Formation in West- Central Alberta has been intensively penetrated by wells targeting deeper reservoirs during the last decades. Production and well log data in this area suggest that significant volumes of gas are still present in both conventional and tight reservoirs of this formation.The Upper Mannville reservoirs in West-Central Alberta consist of fluvial sandstones filling incised valleys. The valley infills are made up of arkosic sandstones with a complex mineralogy. The matrix of these sandstones is made up of various amounts of quartz, feldspars, clay minerals and rock fragments. They were subjected to a complex diagenetic history and the resulting paragenesis influenced the present reservoir properties. Consequently, heterogeneities in the petrophysical properties result in significant exploration risks and production issues.We present in this paper results of a diagenetic study, performed within a well constrained stratigraphic framework, that aims at understanding the impact of mineralogy and diagenesis on reservoir quality evolution. Seventy one core samples from eight wells were collected to perform a petrographic analysis, and to propose a paragenetic sequence. Four main diagenetic events were identified that occurred during burial:– clay coating around the grains;– compaction/dissolution of matrix grains;– quartz and feldspars dissolution that initiated smectite-illite transformation and kaolinisation;– carbonate cementation in the remaining pore space.Clay minerals content and carbonate cementation are the main factors that altered the reservoir quality of these sandstones. The Smectite-Illite transformation was initiated after potassium was released in the formation fluids due to K-feldspars dissolution. This transformation proportionally increased with temperature during burial. Carbonate cementation occured during the uplift phase of the basin, intensively plugging the pore space where the clay content is reduced.Additional SEM and XRD analyses allowed characterizing and quantifying more accurately the different mineralogical phases occluding the porous network. The characterization of both mineralogy and petrophysical properties gives useful keys to locate the diagenetic phases laterally and vertically, and to predict the petrophysical properties distribution.