Thermal and hydraulic properties of sedimentary rocks are key physical parameters to understand both the hydrocarbon generation and the plumbing structure of a petroleum system. The comprehension is achieved by means of modeling a complete geological framework, which requires a large quantity of these physical parameters in order to adequately represent the behavior, in space and through time, of all petroleum system elements (reservoir rocks, sealing rocks, source rocks, and carrier beds).
The main purpose of this study is to create a database with the physical properties of the reservoir and sealing rocks of the 25 main fields of the Greater Campos province. Four hundred is the minimum number of analyses estimated in this project. The rock properties will be measured in IPEXlab and some of them by partner labs. The uncertainties of rock properties will also be included in the database.
For this project we propose the following parameters to be measured:
Intrinsic Permeability: horizontal and vertical; Capillary pressure; Matrix thermal conductivity (horizontal and vertical); Radiogenic heat production (direct measurement and from logs); Porosity (direct measurement in cores and from logs); Rock matrix Density; Viscosity of oils; Error bars relative to each measurement. A rock description and photos of the samples will be provided.
The petrophysical properties of the main rock types in a sedimentary basin are usually unknown. As a result, the property values are extracted from the default libraries of commercial software, hence not always they are appropriate representation of the studied basin. In order to get better migration results, the experts change the rock properties but this way they have only local significance, reducing the quality of the modeling predictions to other areas of the basin (or other petroleum systems).
The physical properties of all the rock types that exist between the source and reservoir levels are to be known with a minimum certainty because they control the prediction of the amount of petroleum and its quality within a studied basin.