Oil & Gas Geology ›› 2009, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (1): 1-10.doi: 10.11743/ogg20090101

    Next Articles

Status,problems and proposals of the quantitative modeling techniques for hydrocarbon migration and accumulation

Shi Guangren   

  1. PetroChina Exploration and Development Research Institute, Beijing 100083, China
  • Received:2008-08-31 Online:2009-02-25 Published:2012-01-16

Abstract:

After a brief discussion of the development and application of quantitative modeling techniques for primary migration(hydrocarbon expulsion),and this paper focuses on the study of modeling techniques in se-condary migration(hydrocarbon migration-accumulation).For primary migration,it is proposed to adopt simplified but less-debated methods for hydrocarbon expulsion calculation and verify their validity through comparing modeling results of secondary migration with real exploration data.As for secondary migration,at present there are four quantitative modeling techniques available:multi-phase Darcy flow,flowpath,hybrid method(multi-phase Darcy flow+flowpath),and invasion percolation.Though great improvements have been made in these four techniques in the past 10 years,their particular disadvantages have not been by and large overcome.Their disadvantages include(1) though the multi-phase Darcy flow has excellent ability to model various times,it cannot generally be effectively applied due to limited computer resources;(2) both flowpath and invasion percolation are basically unable to model different geologic times,i.e.,usually the modeled object is only the present-day(0 Ma) geologic body,while the modeling of other geologic times(≠0 Ma) is still under research;(3) since the practical value of the hybrid method results mostly from the flowpath method,strictly speaking the hybrid method also basically has no ability to model different geologic times.Herein summarizes the background,method and application of each technique,expounds the advantages,disadvantages,and applicability of each method,and proposes a plan for their future modification and development.The paper recommends a comprehensive scheme utilizing quantitative modeling techniques with the ability to model various geologic times.It uses single-phase(water) Darcy flow for calculating overpressure in full space-time.The flowpath modeling is adop-ted when the data is sparse and invasion percolation is employed when the data is dense.

Key words: Darcy flow, flowpath, hybrid method, invasion percolation, primary migration, secondary migration, basin modeling

CLC Number: