Journal of Petroleum Geology, vol. 23 (2), April 2000, pp. 221-244.
Copyright 2000 by Scientific Press Ltd. All rights reserved.

RESERVOIR CHARACTERIZATION BY A COMBINED MICRO-EXTRACTION -- MICRO THIN-LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHY (IATROSCAN) METHOD: A CALIBRATION STUDY WITH EXAMPLES FROM THE NORWEGIAN NORTH SEA

A. G. Bhullar*, D. A. Karlsen**¹, K. Backer-Owe**, K. Le Tran***, E. Skalnes⁺, H. H. Berchelmann⁺⁺ and J. E. Kittelsen⁺⁺⁺

Well logging is used routinely to delineate variations in the physical properties of the water, gas and oil zones in a petroleum reservoir. The analysis of petroleum extracted from reservoir samples is a complementary approach to reservoir screening. For this study, we studied core samples of Jurassic reservoir rock from the Rind discovery (offshore Norway). Bitumen was extracted from these samples using a rapid procedure known as “micro- extraction”. The extracts were then separated into compound classes (saturated hydrocarbons, aromatic hydrocarbons and polar compounds) by Iatroscan thin-layer chromatography -- flame ionisation detection (TLC-FID). Using this approach, we show how problematic transition zones in this reservoir, which had not been resolved by logging techniques, were targeted, analysed and categorised. Furthermore, we demonstrate how oil and water zones can be