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Exploration and Production Division, BP Research, Chertsey Road, Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex TW16 7LN, UK
‘Petroleum Migration’ follows petroleum from its generation in source rocks through migration to the reservoir or the surface. The volume is divided into four parts. Part I deals with both the generation of petroleum by the thermal breakdown of kerogen and the expulsion (primary migration) of the petroleum from the source rock. Emphasis, however, is on understanding and quantifying expulsion driving forces and processes so that the composition and phase of petroleum from a given source rock can be predicted. Predicting the direction of expulsion is also critical. Upward or downward expulsion determines what migration route the petroleum enters, which traps it may reach and so the operative plays in the basin.
Part II considers secondary migration: the processes which control petroleum behaviour during its movement through relatively permeable carrier beds from the mudrock sequences, which contain source intervals, to the reservoir in the structural culmination of the carrier bed or other trap. Secondary migration may be negligible where expulsion is direct into the trap or operate over distances of several hundred kilometres (e.g. in the West Canada Basin). Typically migration distances are of the order of tens of kilometres. Processes occurring during secondary migration may modify the phase and composition of the expelled petroleum and so determine the nature of the petroleum charge reaching the trap. They may also lead to ‘loss’ (retention) of petroleum along the migration pathway and so govern how much petroleum arrives at the trap.
The case studies of Part III shows how understanding of
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This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
