Previous Articles     Next Articles

Geological Evaluation Prediction of Favorable Exploration Zones of TMS Shale Oil in North America

Chen Xiaozhi1, Chen Guihua1, Xiao Gang1, Zhu Yanqing2, Hu Xiaolan3, Zhu Yanhe1   

  1. 1 CNOOC Research Institute, Beijing 100027; 2 No.6 Oil Production Plant of PetroChina Daqing Oilfield Company Limited, Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province 163114; 3 Petroleum Development Branch, China Huadian Engineering Company Limited, Petroleum Development Branch, Beijing 100035
  • Online:2014-04-15 Published:2014-04-15

Abstract: Commercial development of shale oil and gas in North America has drawn great attention from the world. China’s energy companies also eye overseas shale oil and gas market. Therefore, it is of great importance to learning the geological characteristics and resources potential of overseas shale oil and gas blocks. The shale oil and gas reserves and production conditions are the basic contents for assessment if overseas blocks in the favorable exploration zone are brought under rapid appraisal without enough related data. The analysis of TMS (Tuscaloosa Marine Shale) shale oil resources in X area of North America indicates that TMS shale has a number of characteristics, such as large thickness of shale rock, high content of organic carbon, organic matter under the sourcing peak stage, appropriate buried depth of shale rock, appropriate content of clay minerals, the top and bottom of shale reservoir kept desirably, and a great exploration potential for shale oil. Using the multi-layered fuzzy judgment method, the favorable shale oil exploration area can be divided into five types. The first-class area, with the comprehensive evaluation factor higher than 0.75, is the most favorable zone, which is distributed mainly in the central part of the study region. Of the 25 small geographic blocks, Block V is the most potential block for shale oil exploration. The P1 block is the highest in potential abundance for shale oil exploration.