Comparing the Qualities
of Petroleum Systems:
A Holistic Approach
4 | Halliburton Landmark
by: Owen E. Sutcliffe, Mike Treloar and Daniel Slidel
Outcrop of the Late Jurassic black shales and sandstones in the Boulonnais, northern France. Despite having good potential due to favorable petroleum system e
Sutcliffe.
Conventional petroleum systems are complex
geological entities. They comprise petroleum
system elements and petroleum system
processes. The elements originate, contain,
and retain hydrocarbons within them and are
represented by overburden, source rocks,
reservoirs and cap rocks. The processes
generate, migrate, trap and preserve
hydrocarbons within the system (Figure 1).
Due to the commercial importance of these
systems, superlative terms are often used to
describe individual components to enhance their
perceived value. For example, source rocks are
often referred to as “world class,” while the
epithet “excellent” is commonly used to promote
reservoirs. Such terminology fails to take into
account the petroleum system as a whole and
has the potential to cloud our understanding of
the system and its true resource potential.
We have defined a hierarchical, holistic, semiquantitative
index, which compares the qualities
of petroleum systems on an objective basis,
through the application of a new schema
(Figure 1). This schema provides a means of
seeing past the often-misleading terminology
applied to a particular aspect of a petroleum
system and establishes a framework for analogue
definition, while also helping to retain
accumulated knowledge on the nature of these
systems.
IDENTIFYING PETROLEUM
SYSTEMS
In order to compare the quality and potential of
petroleum systems across the globe, the schema
treats proven and frontier petroleum systems
similarly. However, the level of knowledge of the
former is greater than that of the latter.