资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

In the Paleocene to Eocene Wilcox Group in the northern Gulf of Mexico, exploration targets are reaching into deep to ultradeep burial depths. At these great depths, reservoir quality (porosity and permeability) becomes an important risk factor in determining the chance of encountering an economic reservoir. Major controls on reservoir quality are pore types and abundances, pore-throat sizes, and pore network composition. These factors can be analyzed by integrating petrographic, core plug porosity and permeability, and mercury injection capillary pressure (MICP) analyses. The Wilcox sandstones are mostly lithic arkoses and feldspathic litharenites that contain primary interparticle pores, secondary dissolution pores, and micropores. However, these pore types evolve with depth and temperature. As temperature increases, the relative abundance of primary interparticle pores decreases, whereas the relative abundance of secondary dissolution pores and nano- to micropores increases. Associated with this evolution of pore networks with increasing temperature, there is a decrease in reservoir quality. This decrease in reservoir quality is caused by a transition to finer pore-throat sizes that correspond to changes in pore types. Petrographic analysis provides information on pore types, core plug porosity and permeability analysis provides information on volume of pores and effectiveness of flow, and MICP analysis provides information on pore-throat radius distribution. Through forecasting the pore network in the target temperature zone, a realistic porosity versus permeability transform can be selected to estimate permeability from wire-line log porosity.