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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Environmental Geosciences (DEG)

Abstract

Environmental Geosciences, V. 21, No. 4 (December 2014), P. 141ndash159.

Copyright copy2014. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists/Division of Environmental Geosciences. All rights reserved.

DOI: 10.1306/eg.03111413013

Petrologic evidence for the diagenesis of the Donovan Sand, Citronelle Field, Alabama, and implications for CO2 storage and enhanced oil recovery

George Case,1 Amy Weislogel,2 and Keith Coffindaffer3

1James Cook University School of Earth and Environmental Science, Townsville, QLD, Australia; [email protected]
2West Virginia University Department of Geology and Geography, Morgantown, WV; [email protected]
3Chesapeake Energy Corporation, Oklahoma City, OK; [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Geological sequestration of EG13013eq1 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been in use for decades, but it now represents a potentially economical method of mitigating anthropogenic EG13013eq2 output. However, current understanding of the interaction between injected EG13013eq3 and the reservoir rock is limited and prevents accurate estimation of reservoir EG13013eq4 capacity. Delineating the diagenesis of the reservoir is useful in predicting post-EG13013eq5 injection changes in reservoir porosity and permeability. The Albian Donovan Sand member of the Rodessa Formation, Citronelle Field, Alabama, is the subject of an ongoing Department of Energy EG13013eq6-EOR suitability study. The arkosic Donovan Sand is highly heterogeneous, containing conglomeratic intervals, low to extensive poikilotopic calcite cement, loose to tight grain packing, and low <1% to high (5%) porosity (primary and secondary) observed in thin section. It forms the basal members of laterally discontinuous upward-fining parasequences that define a marine to brackish to fluvial delta system. The diagenesis of the Donovan Sand occurred in five stages: 1) pre-burial and compaction–formation of extensive calcite cement; 2) partial dissolution of calcite cement and framework feldspars; 3) secondary calcite cementation, localized dolomitization, and calcite and anhydrite concretion formation; 4) hydrocarbon charge; and 5) pyrobitumen development. Primary porosity is dominant, but substantial secondary porosity was formed during stage 2. Following injection of EG13013eq7, water injection and oil and gas production rates dropped below modeled values. We propose that the EG13013eq8 injection dissolved calcite cement proximal to the injection well and reprecipitated it nearby with the effect of reducing porosity and/or permeability.

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