Unconventional hydrocarbon prospects in ordovician and silurian mudrocks of the East European Craton (Poland): Insight from three-dimensional modelling of total organic carbon and thermal maturity

Abstract

Three-dimensional, structural and parametric numerical modelling was applied to unravel the unconventional hydrocarbon potential of a W-dipping, Lower Palaeozoic mudrock succession, which subcrops for some 700 km in the Baltic, Podlasie and Lublin basins across the SW margin of East European Craton in Poland. Input data comprised structural and thickness maps of Ordovician and Silurian strata and the results of thermal maturity (mean vitrinite-equivalent reflectance, % Ro) and total organic carbon (TOC, % wt.) modelling. A new, spatial interpretation of vitrinite-reflectance variability indicates that the regional, W-increasing thermal maturity pattern breaks into a series of domains, bounded by abrupt maturity variations. In total, 14 tectono-thermal domains were recognised and their boundaries traced to known and inferred faults, mostly of NW‒SE and NE‒SW orientations. On the basis of a combination of thermal maturity and total organic carbon levels (0.6% > Ro <2.4%, and TOC >1.5% wt.), good-quality, unconventional reservoirs can be expected in the Sasino Formation (Caradoc) and Jantar Formation (early Llandovery) in the central and western Baltic Basin. The Jantar Formation also is likely to be prospective in the western Podlasie Basin. Marginal-quality reservoirs may occur in the Sasino and Jantar formations within the Podlasie and Lublin basins and in the Pasłęk Formation (late Llandovery) across all basins. Poor-to moderate-quality, unconventional reservoirs could be present in the Pelplin Formation (Wenlock) in the Lublin and southern Podlasie basins. In spite of a considerable hydrocarbon loss during multiphase basin inversion, the Ordovician and Silurian mudrocks still contain huge quantities of dispersed gas. Successful exploitation of it would require the adoption of advanced fracking methods.