Identification of magnetic enhancement at hydrocarbon/water contacts

Abstract

Identifying the depths of the hydrocarbon-fluid contacts in a reservoir is important for determining hydrocarbon reserves and production planning. Using core samples from the Tay sandstone reservoir in the Central North Sea, we show that thereis a magnetic enhancement at the hydrocarbon-fluid contacts, that is detectable both through magnetic susceptibility measurements and magnetic hysteresis measurements. We observed this magnetic enhancement at both gas-oil and oil-water contacts, that have been independently identified using non-magnetic methods; we did not consider gas-water contacts in this study. We demonstrate that this magnetic enhancement is due to the precipitation of new nanometric iron oxide (magnetite) and iron sulphide (greigite)phases. The magnetic enhancement may be caused by diagenetic changes or preferential biodegradation at the top of the oil column during early filling and at the oil water contact. Our findings have the potential to be used to identify paleo-hydrocarbon-fluid contact in both structurally modified fields and failed wells. The technique can also be used to infer the fill history of a basin and calibrate petroleum systems models. Magnetic susceptibility measurements have the advantage that they can easily and quickly be measured in the field on whole core-material.