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Reservoir characteristics and main controlling factors of oil sand in Houba area, northwestern Sichuan Basin, China

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Abstract

Houba oil sand in frontier Longmenshan Mountain is one of the most typically important unconventional resources. The basic reservoir characteristics of oil sand and the main factors affecting reservoir quality were examined in this article based on porosity, permeability, and mercury porosimetry measurements; thin section analyses; SEM observation; and X-ray diffraction analysis. This study shows that the oil-bearing sandstone reservoir is mainly medium−coarse-grained sublitharenite and litharenite. The main pore type is intergranular pores, including residual primary intergranular pores, dissolved intergranular pores, and dissolved intragranular pores; fractures are common in this study area. The quality of sandstone reservoir is of high porosity and high permeability with a high oil saturation of 89.84 %. It is indicated that the main controlling factors of the reservoir in the study area include deposition, diagenesis, and tectonism. Deposition laid a foundation to porosity evolution, and channel sand is the most favorable depositional facies for the reservoir. Diagenetic alterations are the keys to reservoir evolution; dissolution and chlorite coatings cementation play an effective role in the generation and preservation of pores. Compaction, carbonate cementation, and quartz overgrowth cause many damages to the reservoir porosity. Fractures caused by structural breakages can improve the reservoir permeability and they also can provide fluid migration pathways to the late corrosion, which formed a lot of corroded fissures as reservoir and percolation spaces.

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Acknowledgments

The authors express their deep gratitude to Professor Shuguang Mu, Professor Fan Zhang, Ms Pan Li, and Guoqin Li for their help during the researching and paper constructing process. We are also grateful to Professor Abdullah M. Al-Amri and to the Arabian Journal of Geosciences reviewers for their valuable suggestions and kind help in improving the quality of the manuscript. This study was supported by the innovation fund of Southwest Petroleum University (no. GIFSS0711) and Key Subject Construction Project of Sichuan Province (no. SZD0414).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500, Sichuan, China

    Xuefei Yang, Xingzhi Wang, Shaonan Zhang, Hao Tang, Deming Zeng & Lin Xie

  2. School of Resource and Environment, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500, Sichuan, China

    Xuefei Yang, Xingzhi Wang, Shaonan Zhang, Hao Tang, Deming Zeng & Lin Xie

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  1. Xuefei Yang
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  2. Xingzhi Wang
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  3. Shaonan Zhang
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  4. Hao Tang
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Correspondence to Xuefei Yang or Xingzhi Wang.

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Yang, X., Wang, X., Zhang, S. et al. Reservoir characteristics and main controlling factors of oil sand in Houba area, northwestern Sichuan Basin, China. Arab J Geosci 7, 2119–2128 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-013-0985-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-013-0985-3

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