Patent ID: 9552462
Date: 2017-01-24
CPC Classifications: E21B,G01N,G16C

Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method for predicting petroleum expulsion, the method comprising: isolating kerogen from a rock matrix; determining a chemical composition of the kerogen via a cheminal analysis; identifying a plurality of expelled products of the kerogen under geologic heating rates based on the determined chemical composition of the kerogen; grouping the plurality of expelled products into a plurality of product lumps based on their chemical composition; predicting petroleum expulsion from a subsurface formation for each of the plurality of product lumps, wherein the petroleum expulsion prediction is based on one or more expulsion kinetic models generated from the rate of expulsion of a specific product lump that is expressed by a single frequency factor and a discrete spectrum of activation energies; predicting products of secondary cracking reactions by trapping individual specific product lumps, identifying a plurality of expelled products of the individual specific product lumps under geologic heating rates; and deriving one or more secondary cracking kinetic models; and determining composition of expelled and thermally altered petroleum within basin evolution with a computer based at least partially on the one or more expulsion kinetic models and the one or more secondary cracking kinetic models.