Heteroatomic Cage Compounds
as Molecular Probes For Thermochemical
Sulfate Reduction (TSR) In Hot Petroleum Reservoirs
Wei, Zhibin1, J.
Michael Moldowan1, Fred Fago1, Jeremy Dahl1,
Kenneth E. Peters2, Peter D. Jenden3, Martin Fowler4
(1) Stanford University, Stanford, CA (2) U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park,
CA (3) Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (4) Geological Survey
of Canada, Calgary, AB
Thermochemical sulfate reduction (TSR)
is an abiogenic process in which hydrocarbons are
oxidized by inorganic sulfate in deep, hot petroleum reservoirs. TSR destroys
hydrocarbons, but also generates large quantities of organic sulfur compounds,
hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon dioxide, and elemental sulfur. It can severely
diminish the amounts of producible hydrocarbons and increase production and
processing costs. It is therefore important to develop improved methods to
detect the occurrence of TSR and predict the abundance and distribution of
produced H2S. Our recent work on heteroatomic diamondoids (thiadiamondoids and diamondoidthiols) suggests that these thia-
and thiol-cage compounds represent unique molecular
probes to recognize and quantify the extent of TSR in oil or condensate
samples. We studied suites of oil and condensate samples generated from the Oxfordian Smackover Formation source rock in the
AAPG Search and Discover Article #90063©2007 AAPG Annual Convention, Long Beach, California