Egyptian Journal of Petroleum
Egyptian Journal of Petroleum
Egyptian Journal of Petroleum
H O S T E D BY
a,*
Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute, Nasr City, Hei Al-Zehour, 11727 Cairo, Egypt
Geology Dept, Faculty of Science, Zagazig University, Cairo, Egypt
KEYWORDS
Geochemical;
Statistical;
Cluster;
Factor analyses
Abstract In this study, we apply geochemical and statistical analyses for evaluating source rocks in
Ras Gharib oileld. The geochemical analysis includes pyrolysis data as total organic carbon
(TOC%), generating source potential (S2), production index (PI), oxygen and hydrogen indices
(OI, HI) and (Tmax). The results show that the Cretaceous source rocks are poor to good source
rocks with kerogen of type III and have the capability of generating gas while, the Miocene source
rocks are good to excellent source rocks with kerogen of type IIIII and type II and have the capability of generating oil and gas. The analyzed data were treated statistically to nd some factors,
clusters, and relations concerning the evaluation of source rocks. These factors can be classied into
organic richness and type of organic matter, hydrocarbon potentiality and thermal maturity. In
addition, cluster analysis separated the source rocks in the study area into two major groups. (1)
Source rocks characterized by HI >300 (mg/g), TOC from 0.76 to 11.63 wt%, S1 from 0.44 to
9.49 (mg/g) and S2 from 2.59 to 79.61 (mg/g) indicating good to excellent source rocks with kerogen
of type IIIII and type II and are capable of generating oil and gas. (2) Source rocks characterized
by HI <300 (mg/g), TOC from 0.31 to 2.07 wt%, S1 from 0.17 to 1.29 (mg/g) and S2 from 0.31 to
3.34 (mg/g) indicating poor to good source rocks with kerogen of type III and are capable of generating gas. Moreover, Pearsons correlation coefcient shows a strong positive correlation between
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: elnady1963@live.com (M.M. El Nady).
Peer review under responsibility of Egyptian Petroleum Research
Institute.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpe.2015.05.012
1110-0621 2015 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
204
1. Introduction
Petroleum geochemistry is used as the fundamental science for
understanding the properties of source rocks, productive and
non productive zones, oil migration (all of which result in more
efcient exploration), development of oil elds and sustainable
production. The term source rock refers to an organic-rich
ne-grained sedimentary rock which can produce hydrocarbons due to thermal maturation [1]. Source rock is one of
the main elements of a hydrocarbon system. Therefore, to
identify a region of hydrocarbon, it is necessary to investigate
the source rock and its characteristics rst. Thermal maturity is
the primary factor that determines whether a source rock can
produce oil, gas, or condensate [2]. In order to evaluate the
source rocks various laboratory methods are used. Among
these techniques, RockEval pyrolysis has been widely used
in the industry as a standard method in petroleum exploration
[3]. From laboratory methods, the RockEval pyrolysis
method has been extensively used, worldwide, for oil and gas
exploration in sedimentary basins [4]. This method is used in
determining the thermal maturation of kerogen. Behar et al.
[4] dened the thermal parameters based on which maximum
temperature (Tmax) can be used to determine the dimensions
of the oil window. According to that denition, the Tmax
value for the beginning of the oil window is usually
445435 C, for the peak is 450445 C, and for the end is
470450 C [5]. Thermal maturity of samples can be
determined with plotting Tmax values versus HI. In this
study, we used both geochemical and statistical analyses for
evaluating the source rocks in Ras Gharib oileld.
Although organic matter undergoes many types of evolution, thermal maturation is important in assessing hydrocarbon generation. In the present work, three major
characteristics need to be studied in order to determine the petroleum potential of source rocks: (1) geochemical properties of
organic material, (2) thermal maturation, and (3) the abundance of hydrocarbon. The maturity of organic matter is, however, one of the most important parameters in the evaluation
of oilgas [6]. In this study, both geochemical and statistical
analyses were used to discriminate the maturity and hydrocarbon potentialities of Cretaceous and Miocene source rocks in
Ras Gharib area that lies between latitudes 28230 28240 N
and longitudes 33030 33040 E (Fig. 1). The study area covers
a surface area of about 2.4 km2 in the central part of the
coastal strip of the western side of the Gulf of Suez. Fig. 2
shows the lithostratigraphic column of Ras Gharib oileld,
compiled from the drilled wells in the study area.
The purpose of this study is to establish reliable indices for
an integrated assessment of organic material for petroleum
potential evaluation and focuses on multivariate statistical
analysis and cross-plots of TOC, and parameters of Rock
Eval pyrolysis. With experimental and analytical investigation,
we expect to reveal that the values of eight parameters (HI, QI,
PI, S1, S2 and S1 + S2) increase as the thermal maturity of
Figure 2
205
206
Table 1
Age
Sample type
Formations
Well name
Depth m
TOC wt%
S1
S2
S1 + S2
Tmax
OI
HI
PI
Miocene
Ditch
South Gharib
and Zeit
Belayim
Gharib-252
Gharib-153
Gharib-252
Gharib-163
Gharib-153
Gharib-164
Gharib-165
642
1510
669
2050
2150
2080
2000
1970
1740
2350
711
2400
2250
2090
1800
2750
2.29
0.31
0.76
2.26
3.43
1.12
2.81
1.53
1.64
0.97
2.22
11.63
1.11
1.38
6.9
2.07
3.06
0.24
0.44
1.3
2.27
0.8
2.6
1.04
0.87
0.88
5.88
9.49
0.22
0.94
7.19
0.17
10.88
0.55
2.59
8.79
15.19
2.89
16.01
5.63
4.39
3.24
9.26
79.61
0.86
3.34
37.35
1.51
13.94
0.79
3.03
10.09
17.46
3.69
18.61
6.67
5.26
4.12
15.44
89
1.08
4.28
44.54
1.68
423
409
421
421
425
410
418
409
413
418
423
427
434
417
418
434
97
100
93
12
31
70
23
41
64
41
135
10
128
75
12
138
475
177
341
389
443
258
570
368
268
334
417
685
77
242
541
73
0.22
0.3
0.14
0.13
0.13
0.22
0.14
0.16
0.17
0.21
0.39
0.11
0.2
0.22
0.16
0.1
Gharib-252
Gharib-164
Gharib-252
Gharib-153
Gharib-164
Gharib-165
Gharib-153
Gharib-164
Gharib-165
774
2050
837
2270
2260
3100
2380
2480
3280
1.46
1.5
1.41
1.52
1.41
0.74
0.73
1
0.65
0.73
0.78
1.29
0.45
0.32
0.21
0.22
0.3
0.3
1.68
5.81
3.33
3.25
3.15
0.48
0.31
1.16
0.53
2.41
6.59
3.7
3.47
4.62
0.69
0.83
1.46
1.53
427
426
409
419
427
421
418
423
420
88
70
129
50
65
80
144
60
72
115
387
236
214
223
65
179
116
82
0.3
0.12
0.28
0.12
0.09
0.31
0.19
0.2
0.36
Gharib-153
Basal Miocene
Beds
Cretaceous
Ditch
Wata
Raha
Nubia A
Gharib-164
Gharib-165
Gharib-252
Gharib-163
represents the existing potential of a rock to generate petroleum. Peters and Cassa [5] believed that S2 is a more realistic
TOC because TOC includes dead carbon incapable of
generating petroleum. S3 represents the amount of CO2 from
breaking carboxyl groups and other oxygen-containing
compounds in kerogen, obtained at 300390 C. TOC is determined by oxidizing the pyrolysis residue in a second oven
(600 C in air). The hydrogen index (HI) is the normalized
S2 value (S2/TOC), expressed in mg HC/gTOC. The oxygen
index (OI) is related to the amount of oxygen in the kerogen
and is the normalized S3 value (S3/TOC), expressed in mg
CO2/gTOC. The production index (PI) shows the level of thermal maturation. The S2/S3 values indicate the type of organic
matter for low to moderately mature samples [11]. The generative source potential of the source rocks in the present study
are adopted according to Peters [12] and Gogoi et al. [13].
Analytical data are assigned to the SPSS/PC (statistical
Package for Social Sciences) program to carry out the factor
and cluster analysis. In addition to Pearsons correlation coefcient r between different parameters in order to: (1) quantify the relationship between petroleum potential and maturity,
and (2) analyses diagrams of HI, QI, I versus maturity [14].
Figure 3
207
Quality and quantity of organic matter of Cretaceous and Miocene source rocks, Ras Gharib area, Gulf of Suez, Egypt.
Figure 4
Generating potentialities of Cretaceous and Miocene source rocks, Ras Gharib area, Gulf of Suez, Egypt.
208
Figure 5
Genetic type of organic matter of Cretaceous and Miocene source rocks, Ras Gharib area, Gulf of Suez, Egypt.
[12] and Espitalie et al. [22] reported that oil generation from
source rocks began at Tmax = 435465 C, and production
index PI between 0.2 and 0.4, the organic matters are in
immature stage when Tmax has a value less than 435 C,
and PI less than 0.2 and the gas generation from source
rocks began at Tmax 470 C, and production index PI
more than 0.4.
Based on pyrolysis data kerogen classication diagrams
were constructed using the HI versus Tmax plot as carried
out by previous workers [22] which is used to determine the
kerogen type and maturity (Fig. 6a). The results show that
the analyzed Cretaceous samples are generally plotted in the
immature zone of type III kerogen, while the analyzed
Miocene samples are plotted in the immature zone grading
to marginally mature zone with kerogen of type IIIII and type
II. The plot of Tmax versus PI diagram [12,18] (Fig. 6b) shows
that the Cretaceous source rocks are immature source rocks
while, the Miocene source rocks ranged from immature to
marginally mature.
4.2. Statistical methods
In this study we used different methods including cluster analysis, factor analysis, and Pearsons correlation coefcient.
Figure 6
Thermal maturation of Cretaceous and Miocene source rocks, Ras Gharib area, Gulf of Suez, Egypt.
Figure 7
Table 2
209
Cluster membership.
Case number
Well name
Cluster
Distance
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Gharib-252
Gharib-153
Gharib-163
Gharib-163
Gharib-163
Gharib-153
Gharib-153
Gharib-165
Gharib-165
Gharib-164
Gharib-252
Gharib-163
Gharib-163
Gharib-153
Gharib-164
Gharib-165
Gharib-252
Gharib-164
Gharib-252
Gharib-153
Gharib-164
Gharib-165
Gharib-153
Gharib-164
Gharib-165
1
2
1
1
1
2
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
1
2
2
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
53.532
18.455
117.711
73.171
22.094
94.667
123.352
84.402
105.512
117.432
90.377
246.820
97.759
77.513
101.266
105.550
51.589
67.028
80.743
62.588
62.659
101.603
55.384
58.561
86.036
210
Table 3
Variable
Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
TOC wt%
S1
S2
Tmax
HI
OI
PI
Eigen value
Of variance%
Cumulative%
0.935
0.986
0.944
0.084
0.793
0.423
0.069
3.556
50.799
50.799
0.236
0.037
0.220
0.071
0.372
0.704
0.907
1.568
22.400
73.199
0.158
0.023
0.094
0.959
0.215
0.333
0.275
1.186
16.948
90.147
Table 4
Pearsons correlation coefcient (r) between RockEval parameters for the studied samples.
Variable
TOC
S1
S2
Tmax
HI
OI
PI
TOC
S1
S2
Tmax
HI
OI
PI
1
0.902
0.988
0.213
0.716
0.506
0.337
1
0.899
0.102
0.785
0.368
0.055
1
0.154
0.742
0.519
0.301
1
0.089
0.138
0.261
1
0.582
0.359
1
0.439
Figure 8
at all. (A variable correlated with it will always have a correlation coefcient of 1).
Applying Pearsons correlation analysis shows a strong
positive correlation between TOC and S1 and S2 (Table 4,
Fig. 8) indicates the contribution of S1 and S2 from TOC.
Furthermore, highly positive correlation between TOC and
HI (Fig. 8), highly negative correlation with oxygen index
and no correlation between TOC and Tmax (Fig. 8) and PI
References
[1] R. Rezaee, Petroleum Geology, Alavi Publication, 2002, p. 479.
[2] B. Lecompte, G. Hursan, B. Hughes, Quantifying source rock
maturity from logs. How to get more than TOC from Delta Log
R, SPE Ann. Tech. Confer. Exhibit. Held in Florence, Italy, pp.
1922 Sep. (2010).
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