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AAPG Bulletin

Abstract

AAPG Bulletin, V. 97, No. 8 (August 2013), P. 12731302.

Copyright copy2013. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.

DOI:10.1306/01151311163

The role of fluid pressure and diagenetic cements for porosity preservation in Triassic fluvial reservoirs of the Central Graben, North Sea

Binh T. T. Nguyen,1 Stuart J. Jones,2 Neil R. Goulty,3 Alexander J. Middleton,4 Neil Grant,5 Alison Ferguson,6 Leon Bowen7

1Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom; [email protected]
2Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom; [email protected]
3Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom; [email protected]
4ConocoPhillips Norway, Stavanger, Norway; [email protected]
5ConocoPhillips Petroleum Exploration Company UK, Ltd., Rubislaw House, Anderson Drive, Aberdeen, United Kingdom; [email protected]
6ConocoPhillips Norway, Stavanger, Norway; [email protected]
7Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom; [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Anomalously high porosities and permeabilities are commonly found in the fluvial channel sandstone facies of the Triassic Skagerrak Formation in the central North Sea at burial depths greater than 3200 m (10,499 ft), from which hydrocarbons are currently being produced. The aim of our study was to improve understanding of sandstone diagenesis in the Skagerrak Formation to help predict whether the facies with high porosity may be found at even greater depths. The Skagerrak sandstones comprise fine to medium-grained arkosic to lithic-arkosic arenites. We have used scanning electron microscopy, petrographic analysis, pressure history modeling, and core analysis to assess the timing of growth and origin of mineral cements, with generation, and the impact of high fluid pressure on reservoir quality. Our interpretation is that the anomalously high porosities in the Skagerrak sandstones were maintained by a history of overpressure generation and maintenance from the Late Triassic onward, in combination with early microquartz cementation and subsequent precipitation of robust chlorite grain coats. Increasing salinity of pore fluids during burial diagenesis led to pore-filling halite cements in sustained phreatic conditions. The halite pore-filling cements removed most of the remaining porosity and limited the precipitation of other diagenetic phases. Fluid flow associated with the migration of hydrocarbons during the Neogene is inferred to have dissolved the halite locally. Dissolution of halite cements in the channel sands has given rise to megapores and porosities of as much as 35% at current production depths.

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