Oil & Gas Engineering Dept. Petroleum Geology / 4 MSc. Hussein A.

Petroleum System
( Part Two )

Migration of Petroleum

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 Oil and gas migration are the least understood processes
in the formation of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Much of the
current thinking of how it happens is hypothetical and
difficult to prove with either experiment or theory. When
potential source and reservoir rocks are buried, they contain
water in their pore space. The oil or gas, therefore, has to
replace this water in the migration process when it reaches
the reservoir rock.
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 Types of Petroleum Migration
Transitional stage between place of oil origin and place oil collect. It
divided to three parts:

1- Primary migration: is the process by which petroleum moves from source

beds to reservoir rocks. Mature hydrocarbons first have to migrate out of the
source rock. This is in general a fine-grained rock that has a low
permeability, During burial, this rock gets compacted and its interstitial fluid
become over pressured with respect to surrounding rocks that have higher
permeabilities and from which fluids can migrate with greater ease upwards.
Therefore, a fluid pressure gradient develops between the source rock and
the surrounding, more permeable rocks. This causes the fluids the water and
the hydrocarbons to migrate along the pressure gradient, usually upwards.
This process is called primary migration, and it generally takes place across
the stratification.
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Physiochemical aspects of Primary migration

1 and 2) Pressure and Temperature during burial:

During burial, temperature and pressure increase, leading to Compaction

of the sedimentary rocks. The pore space, therefore, decreases and with it the
volume available for the fluids, principally formation water but also
hydrocarbons. They have to support an increasing load of the overburden stress
unless they escape. In shales, which are poorly permeable but which can be
richer in hydrocarbon source material, the fluids take a much longer time to
escape (and thus to equilibrate hydrodynamic pressures) than in porous and
permeable rocks. This can lead to overpressure in the shales, a so-called
compaction disequilibrium.

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3) Compaction: is the primary motor that leads to the expulsion of
hydrocarbons from shaly source rocks. Compaction is achieved by the
reduction of pore spaces due to the expulsion of pore waters. Freshly deposited
clay-rich sediments have 60-80% pore water contents. Most of this pore water
is expelled due to compaction within the first 2,000m of burial. However, at
that stage petroleum generation by thermal degradation has not been initiated
in most basins. With further burial, very little pore water remains for additional
expulsion. This is why sediment compaction was long disputed as a major
driving force for primary migration. Now it is known, however, that good
quality source rocks experience further compaction with the expulsion of
petroleum.

4) Salinity of interstitial water.

5) Pore diameter and internal surface areas.

6)
6 Fluids.
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2- Secondary migration: is migration of petroleum through permeable rocks
(carrier bed) after expulsion from the source rocks. Unlike primary migration
(expulsion), secondary migration generally involves long distances from tens of
meters to hundreds of kilometers. The main driving forces are:

A. Buoyancy which is due to the density contrast between petroleum

hydrocarbons and water. Oil densities can vary between 0.5 and 1.0 g/cm3,
natural gas densities are much less than 0.5 g/cm3 while pore waters have
densities varying between 1.0 and 1.20 g/cm3 depending on their salinity. These
density contrasts result in oil/water buoyancy gradients varying between 0 and 6.8
kPa/m, while gas/water buoyancy gradients are much higher, i.e. ranging from 4.5
to 11 kPa/m (Hunt, 1996). The greater the volume of interconnected oil saturated
pores, the more the buoyancy forces increase.
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 B. A second driving mechanism can be
hydrodynamic forces. If pore waters are
flowing actively, the passage of oil droplets
through bottle necks in the pores is facilitated.
However, hydrodynamic pore water systems are
relatively rare. The resisting force of capillary
pressures counteracts these driving forces.
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 C. Capillary pressure is the pressure which oil or gas has to
overcome in order to displace the water from the pores of the rock it is
trying to penetrate. This displacement pressure depends very much on the
size of the pore throats. If a rock has very narrow pore throats, capillary
displacement pressures get so high that they cannot be exceeded by the
buoyancy of the oil stringer or gas bubble, and entrapment occurs.

Types of Secondary Migration

 Lateral migration.
 Vertical migration.
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 3- Tertiary migration (Dismigration): occurs when petroleum moves from
one trap to another or to leakage, seepage, dissipation and alteration of
petroleum as it reaches the Earth’s surface.

Figure: Model to illustrate the primary and secondary migration and the accumulations
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 Factors that lead to the petroleum migration
1. Low porosity of Petroleum-bearing sediments because

continuous sedimentation above it.

2. Pressure difference resulting from the earth movements.

3. Extreme pressure generated by natural gas over oil.

4. Capillary if petroleum moves vertically up through pores.

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 The evidence that supports the migration of petroleum

1. Appear oil on earth surface in the form of petroleum nominated.

2. The presence of oil is always in the sandstone rocks and limestone (source rocks
usually is mud).
3. The presence of oil in small quantities sometimes in igneous rocks.

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 Figure: Migration pathways in the Cretaceous System of South Iraq
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 Figure: Migration pathways in the oil fields North Iraq
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