A Study on hydrocarbon-generating potential and kinetics of source-rock pyrolysis

Abstract

A study on the potential and kinetics of hydrocarbon (HC) generation of 30 source-rock samples from a certain depression has been made by means of ROCK-EVAL technique. In the pyrolysis experiment, the source material types, maturation and hydrocarbon-generating potential of source rocks from three Upper Jurassic horizons of that area have been evaluated in terms of such indicators as the type-index, hydrocarbongenerating potential and maximum pyrolysis temperature (T_max). The results show that the pyrolysis HC yield of immature source rocks is much higher than that of mature rocks in case that the source material is of high quantity and organic matter is abundant, which suggests that it is important for evaluating the HC-generating potentiell to use immature samples for pyrolysis. In the pyrolytic simulation experiments on other two immature samples, it was found that the hydrocarbon yield is temperature-dependent, and thereafter the kinetical parameters for source rocks, such as reactional grade, appearant activation energy and frequency factor were calculated.