Thermal maturity estimation of gas shale layers from conventional well log data: A case study from kockatea shale and carynginia formation of Perth Basin, Australia

Abstract

Thermal maturity is an important parameter for commercial gas production from gas shale reservoirs if the shale has considerable organic content. There is a common idea that gas shale formations with higher potential for gas production are at higher thermal maturity status. Therefore estimating this parameter is very important for gas shale evaluation. The present study proposes an index for determining thermal maturity of the gas shale layers using the conventional well log data. To approach this objective, different conventional well logs were studied and neutron porosity, density and volumetric photoelectric adsorption were selected as the most proper inputs for defining a log derived maturity index (LMI). LMI considers the effects of thermal maturity on the mentioned well logs and applies these effects for modelling thermal maturity changes. The proposed methodology has been applied to estimate thermal maturity for Kockatea Shale and Carynginia Formation of the Northern Perth Basin, Western Australia. A total number of ninety eight geochemical data points from seven wells were used for calibrating with well log data. Although there are some limitations for LMI but generally it can give a good in-situ estimation of thermal maturity. Copyright 2012, Society of Petroleum Engineers.