Natural gas origins of large and medium-scale gas fields in China sedimentary basins

Abstract

China sedimentary basins present abundant natural gas resource thanks to its unique geological settings. Marine highly-matured hydrocarbon source rocks, widespread coal-measure strata and low temperature Quaternary saline strata, etc., indicate the wide foreground of China natural gas resources. Up to now, most of the petroliferous basins have been discovered to have wholesale natural gas accumulation from Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic to Cenozoic in the east, the central, the west and the coast of China. These large and medium-scale gas reservoirs are mainly composed of hydrocarbon gas with big dry coefficient, tiny non-hydrocarbon, wide carbon isotope distribution and varying origin types, the hydrocarbon gas includes coal-formed gas, oil-formed gas, biogenic gas and inorganic gas, etc. Coal-formed gas is the main type of China natural gas resources, in particular several explored large-scale gas fields (>100 billion cubic meter) of Kela 2, Sulige and Daniudi, etc., they all belong to coal-formed gas fields or the gas fields consisting mostly of coal-formed gas. Oil-formed gas is also abundant in China marine basins, for example marine natural gas of Sichuan Basin generated from crude oil cracking gas. Primary and secondary biogenic gas fields were discovered respectively in the Qaidam Basin and Western Slope of Songliao Basin. In addition, inorganic gases are mainly distributed in the eastern China, in particular the Songliao Basin with abundant carbon dioxide accumulation, indicating that the eastern China present large exploration potential of inorganic gas.