TY - JOUR
T1 - Scaling analysis of coupled compaction, kerogen conversion, and petroleum expulsion during geological maturation
AU - Yuan, Qingwang
AU - Mehmani, Yashar
AU - Burnham, Alan K.
AU - Lapene, Alexandre
AU - Wendebourg, Johannes
AU - Tchelepi, Hamdi A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier B.V.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/9
Y1 - 2020/9
N2 - Porosity is an important property of source rocks with implications on petroleum storage and expulsion. The evolution of porosity over geologic time-scales is controlled by coupled processes such as compaction, geothermal heating, kerogen kinetics, and fluid flow. Basin-scale models used to predict the evolution of porosity contain a large number of interdependent parameters. This poses a significant challenge on numerically solving the complex system of equations in field-scale simulators as well as quantifying the uncertainty induced by each parameter. Our objective is to identify the dominant mechanisms that control porosity evolution using scaling analysis. We develop a single-cell model that, despite simplifications, captures all important processes driving the physics, e.g., thermal, mechanical, chemical, sorption, and multi-phase flow. We then identify a minimum set of dimensionless numbers, each associated with a term in the governing equations, that have first-order impact on porosity evolution during primary and secondary cracking of kerogen. The insights here can be used to reduce the dimensionality of basin-scale models and to quantify uncertainty.
AB - Porosity is an important property of source rocks with implications on petroleum storage and expulsion. The evolution of porosity over geologic time-scales is controlled by coupled processes such as compaction, geothermal heating, kerogen kinetics, and fluid flow. Basin-scale models used to predict the evolution of porosity contain a large number of interdependent parameters. This poses a significant challenge on numerically solving the complex system of equations in field-scale simulators as well as quantifying the uncertainty induced by each parameter. Our objective is to identify the dominant mechanisms that control porosity evolution using scaling analysis. We develop a single-cell model that, despite simplifications, captures all important processes driving the physics, e.g., thermal, mechanical, chemical, sorption, and multi-phase flow. We then identify a minimum set of dimensionless numbers, each associated with a term in the governing equations, that have first-order impact on porosity evolution during primary and secondary cracking of kerogen. The insights here can be used to reduce the dimensionality of basin-scale models and to quantify uncertainty.
KW - Hydrocarbon expulsion
KW - Porosity evolution
KW - Relative importance
KW - Scaling analysis
KW - Source rocks
KW - Uncertainty analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85083562154&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.petrol.2020.107285
DO - 10.1016/j.petrol.2020.107285
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85083562154
VL - 192
JO - Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
JF - Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering
SN - 0920-4105
M1 - 107285
ER -