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Making sense of carbonate pore systems

¹ Norsk Hydro Oil & Energy, Sandsliveien 90, N-5049 Sandsli, Bergen, Norway; arve.lonoy{at}hydro.com

Arve Lønøy received a Cand. Real. degree in carbonate sedimentology from the University of Bergen in 1981. He has since then worked as a research geologist on carbonate sedimentology and, to a lesser extent, siliciclastic petrography in the Norsk Hydro Research Center. His main work on carbonates has been on Paleozoic carbonates of the Arctic (Norway, Canada, and Russia) and the Mesozoic of western Africa and the Middle East.

The most widely used pore-type classification systems for carbonate reservoirs are limited by the fact that the relation between porosity and permeability is poorly defined. Existing classification schemes for porosity-permeability data do not, in many cases, optimally integrate sedimentology, diagenesis, and flow-related properties. In many carbonate reservoirs, it is therefore difficult to generate predictive models for reservoir-quality distribution, resulting in significant uncertainty in hydrocarbon reserve calculations.

Based on empirical data, mostly from Europe and the Middle East, a new pore-type classification system has been developed. The new system not only uses elements from existing pore-type classification systems, but also introduces many new elements. The new pore-type system includes 20 pore-type classes that show a predictable relation between porosity and permeability. It combines sedimentologic and diagenetic features with flow-related properties, and reservoir-critical parameters can thus be predicted using sedimentologic and diagenetic models.

A practical example based on data from a Devonian hydrocarbon field shows that pore-type variations may account for several-hundred-percent differences in calculated hydrocarbon reserves.

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