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Inversion of tight oil origin by geochemical characteristics: a case study of central Northern Shaanxi Slope, Ordos Basin

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Abstract

Hengshan area is located in the middle of the Northern Shaanxi Slope of the Ordos Basin. Due to the low degree of exploration and weak basic understanding, the origin of tight oil in the study area is not clear, which seriously restricts further exploration deployment. Based on this, this study analyzed the geochemical characteristics of tight oil in Yanchang Formation by chemometrics, then inversed its origin. The results show that the Chang 6 tight oil belongs to the mature stage without biodegradation, in which parent source was formed in a low salinity sedimentary environment. The source of organic matter was mainly from planktonic aquatic organisms and higher plants. Through chemometrics analysis, it is considered that it has a good affinity with the Chang 7 source rocks at the edge of the basin, while the difference with other samples mainly lies in maturity; the content of light components and C30DH/C30H parameters further indicates that the Chang 6 tight oil was generated from Chang 7 source rock at the edge of the basin and experienced a certain scale of lateral migration. Based on the above analysis, the origin of tight oil can be effectively inversed by using the geochemical characteristics of rock extracts in areas with unclear source rocks, which makes up for the blank in the field of tight oil exploration, and is of great significance for subsequent exploration.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Abdullah M. Al-Amri, the editor of Arabian Journal of Geosciences and the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the improvement of the quality of this manuscript.

Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41872165, 42072185) and Science and Technology Cooperation Project of the CNPC-SWPU Innovation Alliance (2020CX030000, 2020CX050000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geoscience and Technology, South West Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500, China

    Xindi Shao, Shijia Chen, Junjie Lei, Yang Liu, Jiang Zhu & Meimei Han

  2. State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Chengdu, 610500, China

    Shijia Chen

  3. Yanchang Oilfield Co. Ltd., Yan’an, 716000, China

    Junjie Lei, Yanjun Bai & Kai Zhou

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  1. Xindi Shao
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Correspondence to Shijia Chen.

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Shao, X., Chen, S., Lei, J. et al. Inversion of tight oil origin by geochemical characteristics: a case study of central Northern Shaanxi Slope, Ordos Basin. Arab J Geosci 14, 698 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-07045-y

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