Research fellows from Moscow Gubkin State Academy of Oil and Gas claim oil production should be temperate, and they have substantial reasons to say so since they suggest a geodynamic concept of continuous formation of hydrocarbon materials. Scientists remind that ideas about slow oil and gas formation and accumulation, in other words, about their exhaustion, were based on a “theoretical conception of oil and gas formation as a process depending on water and hydrocarbon extraction under conditions of sinking and growing compaction of sedimentary rocks with depth”, which took place for tens and hundreds millions of years. However, known facts and new observations shows that deposit formation and migration requires only several years.

Here is an example: 50 years of oil-and-gas-field operation in Chechen Republic resulted in 100 million tons of extracted oil, causing exhaustion of productive strata. When Great Patriotic War struck the country in 1941, several oil wells had to be suspended for the whole military operations period. When the war was over, previously water-flooded wells again started to produce pure (water-free) oil. Another oil pool, which is developed for over 60 years, now shows “second breath”.

It is well known that during pool development light oil ends come first and then appear heavy ends. However, recent ten years of studying physical and chemical properties of oil showed that most wells produce light gas-cut oil against general trend of oil density growth. According to classic laws of oil and gas geology, estimated oil reserves of Tatarstan were 709 million tons, however, over 2.7 billion tons are already extracted. Several more regions showed multifold excess of expected oil reserves during long-term oil well development and pulsing regime of oil recovery.

Scientists detected natural oil seepage at World Ocean bottom surface. All mentioned facts suggest “active migration processes of hydrocarbon fluids and formation of new hydrocarbon pools” in Earth’s crust.

Experiments, performed in Western Siberia, showed that oil fluid flow rate from well to well is about 6 km per day. 3,8õ10 ⁶ tons of liquid hydrocarbons appear on our planet’s surface every years, which means that during recent million years twice as much as known oil reserves should have leaked on Earth’s surface. Thus, hydrocarbon fluid should move in Earth’s crust much faster, than it was previously supposed, and oil pool formation time is compared with a human lifetime.

Suggested geodynamic concept of oil formation considers several mechanisms of oil and gas formation, for example, hydrocarbon material can be formed in large depressions of Earth’s crust; in rift troughs, appearing when ocean basins are expanding; in subduction zones, where lithosphere plates collide, and thin oceanic crust submerges under thick inland crust. Geodynamic concept admits both organic and inorganic origin of hydrocarbons.

The concept of fast and continuous formation of hydrocarbons suggests brand new principles of hydrocarbon deposit development, giving up “violent” technologies of oil and gas extraction and forced fluid withdrawal. Withdrawal rate should correlate with fluid inflow from formation sites. Technological cycle of pool development should include rehabilitation periods, thus opening the possibility of developing the deposit for hundreds of years.

Source:
    Russian Science News
Kizilova Anna