Thermal Indices Innovation

Objectives:

An important control on reservoir permeability and hydrocarbon storage space in shale petroleum systems is an interconnected nano-porosity network. The consensus is that porosity in SOM consequently forms due to increasing thermal maturity and the generation of petroleum from SOM. There are inconsistencies, however, regarding the thermal regime with respect to its preservation in different matrices, its development in different SOM types, and timing of the onset of organic porosity development. The advancement of understanding these inconsistencies requires the ability to differentiate SOM and observe porosity at the nanoscale. Because electron microscopy is unable to differentiate SOM types, CLEM, CLSM, and AFM-IR techniques are used in this research. Prior innovation research focused on these issues yielded pioneering results on hydrocarbon generation and migration fractionation of petroleum, which led to distribution of these advancements at invited international presentations and in an invited synthesis manuscript.

Continuation of these efforts involves three main objectives to advance the understanding of thermal indices development. The first is to use CLEM techniques to document organic porosity development in different thermal regimes and SOM type at a range of scales. Another goal is to better characterize petroleum formation, expulsion, and migration processes at the microscale. The third overarching goal is to continue to innovate applications of correlative microscopy and spectroscopy techniques to characterize physical and chemical properties of SOM across a range of thermal maturities in both naturally and artificially matured sample series.