Geoquímica de reservatórios

Abstract

Reservoir Geochemistry has many important practical applications during petroleum exploration, appraisal and development of oil fields. The most important uses are related to providing or disproving connectivity between reservoirs of a particular well or horizon. During exploration, reservoir geochemistry can indicate the direction of oil filling, suggesting the most appropriate places for drilling new wells. During production, studies of variations in composition with time and determination of proportions of commingled production from multiple zones, may also be carried out. The chemical constituents of petroleum in natural reservoirs frequently show measurable compositional variations, laterally and vertically. Due to the physical and chemical nature of petroleum changes with increasing maturity (or contribution of a second source during the filling process), lateral and vertical compositional variations exist in petroleum columns as reservoir filling is complete. Compositional variation can also be introduced by biodegradation or water washing. Once the reservoir is filled, density driven mixing and molecular diffusion tend to eliminate inherited compositional variations in an attempt to establish mechanical and chemical equilibrium in the petroleum column (England, 1990). Based on organic geochemical analysis it is possible to define these compositional variations among reservoirs, and use these data for developing of petroleum fields and for reservoir appraisal. Reservoir geochemistry offers rapid and low cost evaluation tools to aid in understanding development and production problems. Moreover, the applied methodology is relatively simple and gives reliable results, and can be performed routinely in any good geochemical laboratory at a relatively low cost.