Patent ID: 8492153
Filing Date: 2013-07-23
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
1. A geochemical analysis method for determining the volume of individual organic matter (OM) components having known properties that are present in a sample of oil reservoir rock taken from a specific oil field, where the individual organic matter components correspond to end-member components (x) selected from the group that includes oil, tar, pyrobitumen, kerogen, coal, diesel and drilling mud, the method comprising: a. analyzing pyrolysis data for a plurality of samples of oil reservoir rock for the presence of one or more end-member components in each sample; b. selecting rock samples having a nearly uniform composition of a specific end-member; c. separating any moveable hydrocarbon components from each of the selected rock samples by extraction with cyclohexane, retaining both the solvent extract and the extracted rock sample; d. separating any soluble tar from the extracted rock by further extraction with methylene chloride, retaining both the tar extract and the extracted rock sample; e. separating any residual organic matter from the polar solvent-extracted rock by a demineralization process; f. analyzing all solvent extracts and the residual organic matter from the demineralization process by elemental analysis to determine the weight percentages of C, H, N, O, and S in each sample; g. analyzing all extracts, separated organic matter and extracted rock samples by pyrolysis-TOC analysis to calculate and record the Total Hydrocarbon Index (THI) in mg of hydrocarbon per gram of carbon, as follows: where: h. calculating and recording the average amount of hydrogen present in the pyrolyzable and non-pyrolyzable portions of the end-members in accordance with the following: where: where: where: i. calculating and recording the weight of carbon in the pyrolyzable OM and non-pyrolyzable OM in accordance with the following: where: where: j. calculating and recording the weight of N, S, O in the organic end-member in accordance with the following: k. calculating and recording the weight of organic matter for each end-member relative to one gram of TOC as follows: l. calculating and recording the ratio of organic matter to pyrolizable hydrocarbons (OM/HCp m. calculating and recording the weight of each selected end-member (X) in milligrams per gram of rock in accordance with the following: and n. determining the volume of each selected end-member (X) by dividing the mass of each end-member by the density of the end-member in accordance with the following: o. recording the results of step (n) for each of the end-members and visually displaying the data for analysis.