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Geochemical characteristics and genesis of deep marine carbonate natural gas in China

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Abstract

The deep and ultra-deep oil and gas has been a prominent exploration direction in the field of petroleum industry in recent years. The deep oil and gas resources are mainly distributed in the carbonate rocks, clastic rocks and igneous rocks, of which the carbonate rock reservoirs account for about 40% of global oil and gas reserves for their superior reservoir properties. Currently, a number of large oil and gas fields have been discovered in the deep marine carbonate rocks in China, especially in the Sichuan and Tarim Basin, thus showing a broad oil and gas exploration potential in the deep marine carbonate rocks. In this paper, the genesis and source of deep natural gas in the Tarim and Sichuan Basin has been systematically studied. The results show that the natural gas in the deep marine carbonate rock reservoirs is not only sourced from the deep-source rocks, but the substantial crack of crude oil in the reservoir under the condition of high burial depth and high geotemperature can provide abundant natural gas sources for the deep reservoir. Accordingly, the contribution of gas from oil cracking should be concerned in evaluation on deep natural gas resources.

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source rock in Sichuan Basin

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source rock and reservoir bitumen in Sichuan Basin

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Data availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

The study was funded by the National Science and Technology Major Project of China (Grant No. 2017ZX05013-001), and the National Science and Technology Major Project of China (Grant No. 2017ZX05069-003). The authors are grateful to the reviewers for their careful and detailed comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development-Northwest, PetroChina Company Limited, Lanzhou, 730020, China

    Jianglong Shi, Zhongsheng Shi, Bin Zhang, Bin Hao, Bintao Chen, Luo Xue, Lun Ma & Lei Wang

  2. Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development-Langfang, PetroChina Company Limited, Langfang, 065007, China

    Jian Li, Jin Li, Aisheng Hao & Xuening Qi

  3. The Key Laboratory of Gas Reservoir Formation and Development, CNPC, Langfang, 065007, China

    Jian Li, Jin Li, Aisheng Hao & Xuening Qi

  4. School of Geosciences, Yangtze University, Wuhan, 430100, China

    Wei Lin

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  1. Jianglong Shi
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Correspondence to Jian Li or Wei Lin.

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Shi, J., Li, J., Li, J. et al. Geochemical characteristics and genesis of deep marine carbonate natural gas in China. Carbonates Evaporites 36, 65 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13146-021-00732-7

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