Reservoir Forming Conditions and Models of Oil Sands in Northwestern Margin of Junggar Basin, China

Abstract

The northwestern margin of Junggar Basin is the region with the richest oil sand resources in China. For better understanding the enrichment rules and deployment of exploration and development of regional oil sand, it is of great scientific significance to study the accumulation conditions of oil sand in different strata and mining areas of the Junggar Basin. Through a large number of field investigations, drilling verification and sampling tests, it is found that the oil sand in the region covers an area of 2 000 km², with shallow and thick reservoir, and predicted resource of 180 million tons. The oil sand resources are mainly distributed in four geological strata, namely the Middle Triassic Karamay Formation, Early Jurassic Badaowan Formation, Late Jurassic Qigu Formation, and Early Cretaceous Qingshuihe Formation. The reservoir is mainly composed of sandstone with high porosity and permeability, and the reservoir space is mainly intergranular pores with a medium average oil content. The oil sand deposit in the region is a typical destructive oil reservoir. The crude oil in the oil sand layer is degraded and thickened from the deep to the shallow, the content of saturated hydrocarbon decreased, and the content of aromatic hydrocarbon, non-hydrocarbon and asphaltene increased. The oil source comes from the deep Permian hydrocarbon-generating depression. Unconformities, faults and marginal fan delta-braided river depositional systems constitute effective migration and storage systems. Caprocks of the Upper Triassic Baijiantan Formation, Lower Jurassic Sangonghe Formation and Lower Cretaceous Hutubihe Formation were formed by three large scale lake transgressions. The Indosinian, Yanshan and Late Yanshan movements are the main driving forces for the migration of deep oil and gas to the shallow edge to form oil sand deposits. It is considered that the oil sand in the northwestern margin of Junggar Basin is of a slope complex migration type.

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