A Novel Method to Determine Kerogen Content of Tight Gas Shale

Abstract

Reservoir evaluation of source rock is still a challenge because the geochemical assessment of the kerogen content is complicated and time consuming. Existing traditional methods to characterize kerogen involves the removal of inorganic minerals which is a critical preliminary step. The incomplete isolation of kerogen may introduce some errors and uncertainties in kerogen content estimation. The alteration of kerogen microstructure during this process has also been documented. The current approach still requires input from geochemical measurement of total organic carbon (TOC) while the conversion of TOC to kerogen volume requires the precise value of a conversion factor and kerogen density. Overall, there is yet a standard lab or field scale approach to characterize kerogen content. These difficulties and uncertainties prompt the motivation to attempt a new methodology to quantify the kerogen content of unconventional shale from porosity measurements. Porosity is the basic rock property that is related to the volumetric average of pore space. The distinction between the total and effective porosity is meaningless for shale and this characteristic property has enabled the preservation of its organic content. The recent popularity and growth of different measurement techniques is in part closely tied to the near zero porosity of shale. Two special cases of practical interest are NMR and density porosity measurements which can both be measured in the rock physics lab and well logs. NMR porosity is sensitive to 1H which is naturally enriched in kerogen whereas density porosity must be calibrated to the mineral matrix. Based on porosity measurements, the emerging aproach is that the kerogen volume fraction is the contrast between NMR and density porosity. Although, the theoretical basis of this approach is not satisfactory, it is straightforward and far less complicated than the existing approaches to quantify kerogen content. We investigate this concept further based on laboratory measurement. We conducted laboratory measurements of NMR porosity, bulk density, grain density and TOC on Qusaiba shale to characterize its kerogen content. In our approach, we conducted the NMR experiment on the shale samples in the dry state without fluid saturation.