In the last years simultaneous analytical breakthroughs have established oil geochemistry as one of the most powerful and effective tools to characterize oil origin, thermal evolution, oil mixing, stage of biodegradation and oil quality. Also, recently a new breed of analytical equipments and finds in molecular and isotope geochemistry allow the elucidation of the molecular DNA, age of its generative source rocks, oil cracking to gas, migration distance and overall petroleum system history. A proper understanding of the oil source rock history forms the basis for defining Petroleum Systems and assesses its exploration risk.
The use in IPEX of highly sophisticated analytical equipments (GC/MS-MS and IRGC-MS) have allowed basin modeling simulations to determine the locations of hydrocarbon kitchens and migration routes of petroleum from those kitchens to traps. Such information is crucial for a proper understanding of a petroleum system, and can create new oil exploration plays in relatively unexplored or even in well-explored basins.
More recently IPEX and Biomarker Technology developed a proprietary oil DNA technology that allows measuring the depositional environment and age-diagnostic signatures of oil and condensate samples, thus providing a means of determining the paleoenvironments of deposition and age of an oil source rock, without analyzing the rock itself. This can be extremely important because more often than not, the source rock is not drilled.
Biomarkers also give decisive source and thermal maturity information for oils generated in the main oil window.