Geology of the Cardium Formation along the western halo of conventional oil reservoirs of the Pembina field, Alberta, Canada
Abstract
Cardium Fm. wells are - at present - drilled in reservoirs around legacy areas of oil
fields. However, studies summarizing the geological characteristics of such reservoirs
are scarce. A central issue is that as fields expand elemental parameters of the
formation become unpredictable. As a contribution to solve this problem, “Cardium A”
intervals at the halo (Brazeau T44-47R9-12W5) of the Pembina field are explored to
reveal successions that clean upwards to very-fine grained litharenites and bioturbated
wackes with abundant deformation features. Permeability (PDPK) and porosity
measurements reveal that reservoirs are not uniformly tight but consist of mixtures of
conventional (>0.01mD) and unconventional (<0.01mD) zones. Petrological and
geochemical (XRD, XRF, SEM, BSE, EDX, and CL) studies suggest that resource
recovery may be affected by the presence of swelling clays (smectite, mixed-layer
illite/smectite, illite, chlorite, sericite, and kaolinite). Nonetheless, a practical method -
based on production data- is presented to assess exploration risk and to expose the
areal distribution of high gas-to-oil ratios.
Description
Keywords
Education--Sciences, Geography, Geochemistry, Geology, Geophysics, Engineering--Chemical, Engineering--Petroleum, Geotechnology
Citation
Rojas Aldana, C. A. (2017). Geology of the Cardium Formation along the western halo of conventional oil reservoirs of the Pembina field, Alberta, Canada (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26283