The general idea is to use the chemical composition and carbon and hydrogen isotopes in gases not only for a simple fingerprinting of their type and origins, but also to have them as tracers of processes affecting gas genesis, thermal cracking, migration inducing fractions, leakage through the cap rocks in the reservoir and leakage and seepage into the sea floor and surface sediments. The results of such type of analyses have direct implications for a better understanding of a petroleum system in a sedimentary basin.
Application of gas geochemistry allows the identification and characterization of gas type and source origin (biogenic versus thermogenic), thermal evolution (primary versus secondary cracking), distance of migration, gas versus oil source rock correlation, efficiency of hydrocarbon accumulation versus leakage, and bacterial contamination and/or degradation.
In the last three years IPEX has analyzed more than a 600 gas samples from Latin America and West Africa sedimentary basins allowing the construction of a very comprehensive internal and proprietary gas database. Such data is critical in the understanding of gas systems and its relationship with basin evolution, thermal regimes and source rock type distribution.