The purpose of this study is to reveal any relationships between various crude oil properties and geology in the Kubiki (Katamachi) gas and oil field, Japan. Taking the reservoir conditions into account, we found out tendencies that some properties of crude oils vary with the geologic conditions in the field. The Kubiki gas and oil field is one of the largest field in Japan and includes several producing structures (Figure 1). The general stratigraphic column is shown in Figure 3. Many reservoirs are intercalated in the dark grey mudstone of the late Miocene Teradomari Formation. Amoung these structures and reservoirs the Ie reservoir in the Katamachi structure is producing much oil. Thus, our study was carried out mainly on the Ie oils and Ie reservoir there. The Katamachi structure is a gentle dome cut by many minor faults (Figure 2). The Ie reservoir is more or less tuffaceous or shaly sand and remarkably changes in thickness (Figure 4).
We sampled crude oils from 73 producing wells (Table 1) and measured specific gravity and absolute viscosity. Furthermore, we conducted fractional distillation and made a gas-chromatographic analysis of lighter cut of the crude oils (lower than 105°C). On the other hand we collected various reservoir data including initial water-oil ratio.
Through the above-mentioned work, we have come to the following conclusion.
1) The initial boiling point of these crude oils is relatively high and the amount of lighter fraction is comparatively small (Figure 9). As for fraction of 250-275°C the crude oils are generally of naphthenic base.
2) Specific gravity of crude oils from a reservoir in a small area vary very much (Figure 5). Taking the initial water-oil ratio (Figure 6) and the thickness of the reservoir into account, it is suggested that wells producing heavier crude oil are generally situated at the places where the sand reservoir is thin and initial water-oil ratio is large and vice versa, almost regardless of the setting of the wells in the Katamachi structure. This tendency is quite remarkable in the block east of d-d' fault. This is probably because in the portion where the reservoir is thin the reservoir is shalier and contains much of water. But this tendency is not clearly recognized in the block west of d-d' fault. Consequently we propose schematic models of the Ie reservoir in the Katamachi structure (Figure 7).
3) Absolute viscosity has a strong correlation with specific gravity (Figure 8), however, the above tendency (described in 2)) cannot be ascrived to the variation of viscosity of the crude oils. Relation of viscosity vs. specific gravity of the Katamachi crude is quite different from that of Khafji field, Middle East. This fact can be explained from the distillation histograms (Figure 9).
4) Relative amount of lighter hydrocarbons shows a considerable variation (Table 2). However, the Kubiki crude has much of cycloparaffins and branched paraffins, and thermodynamical equilibrium is not found out. These facts suggest that the Kubiki crude is young and less-evolved oil.
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