Cui Yongqiang, born in February 1965, Ph.D., senior engineer. Working unit: Daqing Oilfield Exploration and Development Research Institute. In 2001, he completed his doctoral dissertation "Research on the Mechanism and Pattern of Inorganic Gas Accumulation in Songliao Basin" at China University of Petroleum (Beijing), in 2004, he completed his postdoctoral report "Background Study on Deep Source Oil and Gas Geology in Songliao Basin" at Peking University, and published "Modern Petroleum Geology - Mantle Source Oil and Gas Theory" in 2018.
The spinel diphryl peridot comes from the research group of "Mantle Source Oil and Gas Theoretical Evaluation Research in Songliao Basin", which provides a theoretical and technical basis for daqing oilfield to weigh 50 million tons.
□ Cui Yongqiang text/photo
The progress of natural science theory, experiments, space exploration, oil exploration and development practices and their achievements have made it possible for traditional petroleum geology to be upgraded from scientific hypotheses to modern petroleum geology scientific theories.
Due to the different understandings of the problem of oil generation, people have proposed two hypotheses: organic and inorganic causes of petroleum. The organic origin hypothesis is that oil comes from sedimentary organic matter, and the fine-grained sediment layer rich in sedimentary organic matter is the oil-generating layer. According to the differences in oil-generating layers, the traditional petroleum geology with organic causes as the core derives the continental oil formation theory and the marine phase oil formation theory.
The discovery of bedrock reservoirs challenges both the terrestrial and marine theories. Bedrock is metamorphic and volcanic rocks that develop on the substrate of the basin and do not possess the sedimentary organic matter required for organic origin. Bedrock oil and gas have been found in more than 30 basins worldwide. The global bedrock oil and gas reservoir has oil reserves of 248×108t, and natural gas reserves of 2681×108m3. Therefore, the existence of bedrock reservoirs itself rejects the hypothesis of organic genesis of petroleum, including the theory of continental oil production and the theory of marine oil generation.
Predecessors have made fruitful research results on the road to the inorganic causes of oil, and the concept of oil coming from the mantle has reached more and more consensus.
Learn about mantle source oil and gas
Mendeleev first proposed the "iron carbide hydrocarbon theory" in 1876. He believes that after the deep iron carbohydrates of the earth encounter water, "iron or other metals react with oxygen in the water to form oxides, the hydrogen in the water is separated, part of it is free, in the process of oxidation, the carbon that was originally combined with iron is also separated, combined with hydrogen to form hydrocarbons, which are oil, which rise while cooling, condensing into liquids and agglomerating in the formations that receive them."
Sokolov also noted the genesis link between oil and magma in 1889 and proposed the "cosmic theory" of oil generation, based on the discovery of methane by spectroscopic analysis of planetary bodies in the solar system, and the inorganic synthesis of hydrocarbon compounds by fischer-Tropsch reactions. He believes that hydrocarbons exist in the atmosphere when the Earth is still in a molten state, and then condense in the upper part of the earth's crust as the earth cools and contracts, and are separated along the fissures, and can be aggregated into oil and gas reservoirs when there is a porous formation and when it is covered by a non-permeable layer.
Kudryantsev inherited the ideas of Mendeleev and Sokolov in 1951, proposing the "magmatic theory", which holds that hydrocarbons are formed not only on the planets and the sun, but also in the magma of the earth. In the process of magma rise, the temperature gradually decreases, and the highly active methylgyne group polymerizes, which becomes methylene (CH2), methyl (CH3), methane (CH4), and finally forms hydrocarbon substances; carbon monoxide can also directly synthesize hydrocarbon substances, and hydrocarbon compounds involving hydrogen and other elements are formed under high temperature and pressure.
In 1955, Kropotkin argued that the origin of oil and gas and hydrocarbon magma was not related, proposing that the solid Earth was composed of planetary cold cosmic dust and gases, which refer to the helium, nitrogen, and hydrocarbons that participate in the original material that makes up the Earth and other planets. The 1976, 1985 and 1991 Soviet academic conferences on "Earth Exhaust and Geotectonics", chaired by Kropotkin himself, and the 2002, 2006, 2008 and 2010 all-Russian and CIS conferences "Earth Exhaust: Geodynamics, Earth Fluids, Oil and Gas (Hydrocarbons and Life)" chaired by Dmitryevsky, emphasized the idea that the Earth is a cold ball.
The above-mentioned disagreement about whether hydrocarbons originate from magma is unified in the "hydrocarbon-alkali fluid geochemistry" proposed by Lotte in 1996. Mantle fluids are hydrocarbon-alkali fluids, and hydrocarbons and bases are the two major components of hydrocarbon-alkali fluids. Hydrocarbon-alkali fluids can account for the formation of basalt magma in mantle rocks, and can also account for crustal rocks and sedimentary rocks to form medium acid volcanic rocks. In the process of ascending, the mantle hydrocarbon alkali fluid exists in a supercritical state and continuously interacts with the surrounding rock, and the metal and siliceous components are continuously obtained from the surrounding rock. At the critical temperature (the critical temperature of water is 374.2 °C), the hydrocarbon-alkali fluid will be converted into hydrothermal fluids containing hydrocarbons, metals, non-metals, and rare earth elements, and these hydrothermal components will be differentiated under suitable temperature and pressure and formation conditions to form metallic, non-metallic, oil and gas deposits. Therefore, metal and non-metallic deposits are associated with hydrocarbons, while oil is rich in a large number of incompatible elements such as metals, non-metals, and rare earths.
Oil and magma are different products of the fluid action of the mantle, oil from deep faults, oil from mud volcanoes and oil from magma eruption channels, they are all derived from hydrocarbon-alkali fluids. The hydrocarbon-alkali hydrochemical theory supports both the idea that Kropotkin's earth is a cold ball and explains the relationship between oil and magma observed by Mendeleev, Sokolov, and Kudryantsev. In this sense, the hydrocarbon-alkali fluid geochemistry principle is the Chinese version of the theory of inorganic genesis of petroleum. The hydrocarbon components in the hydrocarbon-alkali fluid are the source of the mantle source oil and gas.
The mantle-source oil and gas concept is at the heart of modern petroleum geology. In order to clarify the difference between modern petroleum geology and continental oil theory, marine oil generation theory and previous inorganic cause theory, this paper proposes to use "mantle source oil and gas theory" or "mantle source oil and gas geology theory" to summarize modern petroleum geology.
It must be noted that the concept of mantle hydrocarbon-alkali fluids derived from uranium geology has been confirmed by the upper mantle and asthenosphere geochemical studies, uranium ore geology studies and other metal non-metallic mineral geology research institutes.
Generation and evolution of mantle source oil and gas
Natural petroleum, as a member of the H-C system, is composed of a mixture of hydrocarbon molecules with high reducivity, and these hydrocarbon molecules have a high chemical potential, most of which are liquid, so natural oil is in a clearly unbalanced state. The first scientific question about the existence and origin of the hydrocarbon molecules that make up petroleum is: Under what thermodynamic conditions, molecules with high chemical potential and high reducivity evolve?
This is a chemical thermodynamic stability problem. This question has nothing to do with the rocky characteristics that oil may have, nor with the properties of microorganisms found in oil.
The study of chemical thermodynamics, based on modern atomic and molecular theory, quantum statistical mechanics, and mode theory, answers these questions. Petroleum molecules are C-H system molecules, while biomolecules are C-H-O system molecules. The chemical potential (chemical potential, Gibbs free energy) of all C-H-O biomolecules (represented by glucose and whose formula is C6H12O6) is smaller than the chemical potential of CH4. The larger the mass of the biomolecules in the C-H-O system, the lower the chemical potential, while the hydrocarbon molecules in the C-H system, in contrast, the greater the mass, the higher the chemical potential. The second law of thermodynamics prohibits the natural evolution of molecules with low chemical potential to high chemical potential molecules.
Methane is the only hydrocarbon that is stable under standard temperature and pressure conditions. The formation of normal alkanes from methane is only possible at pressures greater than 30,000 atmospheres and temperatures greater than 700 °C (equivalent to a depth of about 100 km underground). Therefore, the formation of heavier hydrocarbons from oxidized organic molecules such as carbohydrates (C6H12O6) is not possible under any conditions.
High-pressure experiments of the origin of modern hydrocarbons prove Mendeleev's vision. The materials used are also the most common marble on Earth, CaCO3, ferrous oxide FeO and distilled water. The use of the carbon compound CaCO3 in the experiment was oxidizing and low chemical potential compared to mantle conditions, all of which made it less likely for the system to evolve carbon into heavy alkanes. The experimental results found that when the pressure was lower than 10,000 atmospheres, no hydrocarbon molecules heavier than CH4 were present. When the pressure is greater than 30,000 atmospheres, hydrocarbon molecules begin to evolve. When the pressure reaches 50,000 atmospheres and the temperature reaches 1500 ° C, the system spontaneously produces methane, ethane, n-propane, etc. with natural petroleum distribution characteristics until n-decane, ethylene, n-propylene, n-butene, n-pentene.
The study of chemical thermodynamics and high-pressure experiments is an important turning point in the evolution of inorganic causes of petroleum from hypotheses to scientific theories. The second law of thermodynamics states the irreversibility of the evolution of C-H system molecules into C-H-O molecules, thus completely negating the hypothesis that oil comes from life. It also negates the possibility of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reactions (including the hydrogenation of living matter at low pressure) to produce natural petroleum. Because Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is highly controlled at low pressure, useful intermediates need to be removed continuously, and such a process does not exist under stratigraphic conditions.
Transport and aggregation of mantle source oil and gas
Kropotkin noted in 1958 that "the organic genesis theory has nothing but to say that oil should be sought in sedimentary rocks". "It cannot give oil finding principles that apply to any oil area." It can be seen from this that the theory of organic causes attributes the results of previous oil exploration to oneself and proves the correctness of organic causes, which does not follow the principle of seeking truth from facts. The core work of traditional petroleum geology is to optimize traps. The theory of organic genesis cannot answer whether there is oil in the trap. This downgrades scientific exploration to simple trial-and-error behavior. The success rate of world oil exploration is 10% to 30%, which is obtained through trial and error.
"More than 99% of the world's oil and gas fields are distributed in sedimentary rock areas, and these sedimentary rocks have fine-grained sediments rich in organic matter", this geological fact was once one of the three bases for the organic genesis of petroleum. It has been ascertained that sedimentary basins correspond to upper mantle asthenosphere uplifts, and the higher the upper mantle asthenosphere uplift, the greater the oil and gas abundance of sedimentary basins.
Because the formation of sedimentary basins is not an isolated sedimentary phenomenon, it is the result of tectonic movement of the Earth's crust. The hugely thick sediments developed in the basin need to be provided by the corresponding sedimentary space by the lower volt layer. Due to the rigid nature of the upper crust, the corresponding sedimentary space can only be provided by the lateral flow of the plastic layer of the middle crust. The density difference between the middle crust and the sedimentary layer inevitably leads to a gravitational imbalance, and this gravitational deficit must be compensated by the uplift of the upper mantle asthenosphere. Therefore, the uplift of the upper mantle asthenosphere and the formation of sedimentary basins are complementary events and the inevitable result of gravitational equilibrium. The uplift of the upper mantle asthenosphere will inevitably lead to the enrichment of the mantle hydrocarbon alkali fluid to the top of the asthenosphere uplift, and at the same time, the upper mantle asthenosphere uplift will cause the tensile rupture of the rigid lithosphere of the upper mantle, and the mantle hydrocarbon fluid in the asthenosphere will enter the crust and sedimentary layer through these tensile ruptures, in which the hydrocarbon components may be trapped by the formation to form oil and gas reservoirs, or rise to the surface of the basin, enter the basin water body or escape into the atmosphere.
Mendeleev correctly pointed out 140 years ago that the distribution of oil deposits parallels the ridge direction of the mountains. In modern basin exploration, people have also summed up the correct conclusion of "one crack and one mine", and identified "oil source fracture" and "gas source fault". Unfortunately, due to the lack of support from tectonic theories in the past, it is not possible to further regard the phenomenon of fracture control of oil and gas as direct geological evidence that oil and gas originate deep. The creation of the continental stratum tectonic theory solved this problem by demonstrating the lack of oil and gas in basins that lack communication with the deep. For example, in the Foreland Basin of the South Qinling Mountains, due to the rapid downward subduction of the plastic layer of the crust in the North Qinling Mountains due to the rigid crystalline base at the bottom of the crust on the South Qinling Mountains, a double-layer rigid upper crust is formed at the bottom of the basin, which hinders the deep fluid from rising to the sedimentary basin, resulting in a lack of oil and gas in the sedimentary basin. In view of the different tectonic characteristics of eastern, central and western Chinese mainland, the continental stratigraphic theory proposes a tectonic geological model for controlling mantle source oil and gas, that is, the oil control mode of the basin-mountain system in the eastern fault basin of the eastern Chinese mainland, taking the Songliao Basin and the Bohai Bay Basin as an example, the oil and gas reservoir is positioned near the compressive positive fault; the oil and gas reservoir is located near the positive fault of the compressive shear in the central depression basin, Chinese mainland the oil control mode of the backspage-type punching orogenic belt in the central depression basin, taking the Ordos Basin as an example, the oil and gas reservoir is located near the reverse thrust fault; the oil control mode of the thick-skinned longitudinal bending uplift zone in the western crushing basin of the Chinese mainland. Taking the Junggar Basin, the Tarim Basin and the Sichuan Basin as examples, oil and gas are positioned near the thrust fault. The vacuum suction effect of the thick skin longitudinal bend uplift is the power source of oil and gas enrichment in the depression basin. As basin tectonic activity continues to occur, deep hydrocarbon resources will continue to be supplied to sedimentary basins and developed reservoirs.
Continental stratigraphic theory (Li Yangjian et al., 1996) comprehensively expounds the formation and evolutionary relationship between mantle structure, crustal structure and sedimentary layer structure. While elevating tectonic geology from the level of geometry and kinematics to the level of dynamics and rheology, it has made important contributions to promoting the development of petroleum geology.
The study of the precise positioning of oil and gas reservoirs in the sedimentary layer-like fault system of the fault basin was completed by Tsimulkiev of the Central Geophysical Research Institute of Russia and his team. They used three-dimensional seismic technology to obtain a practical result of 100% success rate in the Jurassic exploration of the Yat-Prov oilfield in the West Siberian Basin. From 2005 to 2008, they deployed 37 exploration wells and obtained all industrial oil flows, of which well 239 received the highest output of 700 tons of oil per day, 49 × of gas per day and 104 m3.
The oil and gas control model of the small fault-fault-leaving bottom slip fault developed by Zimurkiev et al. clarifies that the oil and gas distribution is within 1.5 km of the slip fault zone, and the different stress-strain states of the reservoir determine the different oil and gas production. It provides strong technical support for oil exploration and development. If practice is the only criterion for testing truth, then a 100% success rate of exploration proves the truth of mantle oil and gas theory.
Mantle source oil and gas rising momentum
Combined with the geological reality of uranium ore, Du Lotte (1987) further deepened and improved the theory of earth exhaust, and finally developed into the mantle juice (HACONS) theory. Earth exhaust is defined as the spontaneous upward and outward radiation emissions of supercritical mantle hydrocarbon alkali fluids from the depths of the Earth.
Mantle juice is vertically banded in the interior of the earth, from deep to shallow in order: there is a huge amount of hydrogen stored in the core; there is a solid FeH in the core; and a large amount of H and H2 can be dissolved in the liquid Fe of the outer core, which has long been known in metallurgy. The powerful hydrogen flow in the inner and outer cores is the source and backing of the mantle fluid. The driving force of the upward radiation of hydrogen flow is pressure difference, temperature difference, viscosity difference, quality difference, density difference, and concentration difference. When the hydrogen flow penetrates upwards through the lower and middle mantles, a large number of dispersed active cations (they are extruded from the magnesium oxide and silicate lattice under high pressure and are in an activated state) are extracted and carried upwards, the most important extraction components are Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs (in the form of hydrides), so the mantle juice at this time is called hydrogen mantle juice (H-HACONS); when H-HACONS continues to penetrate the upper mantle, it evolves into alkaline mantle juice (A- due to the extraction of a large number of alkali metals along the way. HACONS)。 The genesis of the upper mantle asthenosphere (body), the abnormal mantle, basalt magma, kimberlite, etc. all depend on the infiltration, enrichment and accounting of A-HACONS. As the mantle fluid continues upward into the crust, it further evolves into oxygen mantle juice (O-HACONS). It is the cause of the low-velocity bodies and acidic magma in the Earth's crust.
The mantle juice theory explains the material sources, power sources and various geological effects caused by the Earth's exhaust gases more completely. The details covered in this theory will have a major role in the study of the formation and evolution of the Earth. It is well known that the oceans do not have a single piece of the pre-Jurassic crust, and the Earth is undergoing massive asymmetrical expansion. An in-depth exploration of the sources of material and energy during ocean cracking and Earth's expansion will contribute to an understanding of Earth's exhaust and Earth's formation and evolution.
Reserve supply of oil and gas reservoirs have been discovered
Earth exhaust or mantle radiation is an inevitable process of Earth's evolution, in which mantle source oil and gas continuously replenish the reserves of sedimentary basins and discovered oil and gas reservoirs.
In mendeleev's time, the fact that the output of various fields was already decreasing was noted, and some people put forward the idea that all oil fields would eventually dry up. Based on his own research, Mendeleev proposed: "To this day, in the deep underground around Baku, oil continues to be generated, which originates from water that penetrates deep into the earth's interior, and reaches the upper strata in a gaseous form through the cracks in the deep part of the earth, where it accumulates in oil reservoirs." "For a long time, there was a possibility of finding new huge oil deposits in the Baku oil field." He keenly observed that pennsylvania's oil fields were expanding towards the plane, with an expansion length of more than 200 versts (about 200 km) from 1859 onwards, while the Baku oil field (with an annual output of about 500,000 pt, about 8190 tons) comparable to Pennsylvania's production, was manifested in the deepening depth of the well, which was 80 russians (about 171 m) in 1880 and had reached 150 russian zhang (about 320 m) by 1902.
Kudlyandsev pointed out in 1951 that because the process of forming oil in magma is constantly going on, and the ancient oil and gas have long since escaped and disappeared through diffusion, all oil reservoirs, including those in cambrian formations, are young reservoirs. Moreover, it is only by relying on oil that organisms are produced on earth, and oil contains all the chemical elements that living things need, so that oil does not come from organic matter, but on the contrary, organic matter comes from oil.
Hydrothermal vent oil in the Guaymas Basin in the central California Gulf has an average age of only 4692a, proving that oil is being generated. While the natural gas in the PL19-3 oilfield offshore China is constantly escaping along the vertical fracture, the PL19-3 field still has huge reserves, indicating that there has been a deep oil and gas supply since the formation of the reservoir. Examples of old oilfields with more than reserves, such as the U.S. Oilfield in Block 330 of Eugene Island in the Gulf of Mexico, were discovered in 1971 and had produced 159×108 m3 of crude oil by the end of 1997, while the recoverable reserves calculated at that time were only 4880 ×104 m3, indicating that crude oil has been replenished with new supplies and the composition of oil and gas has also changed; the recoverable reserves of the Romashkin oilfield in the Volga-Ural Basin of Russia are 20×108t, and by 2002, the cumulative oil production has been 30×108t. In addition, some oilfields in the Grozny oil region (such as old Grozny, October, Margobek and other oil fields) have already exceeded the recoverable reserves.
Studies of the high-pressure origin of hydrocarbons disprove the biological genesis of coal and gas hydrates. From the chemical composition of coal and oil, there is no essential difference between the two. From this, the basic conclusion that coal comes from oil can be obtained. This conclusion is based on the basic facts that are well recognized as petroleum asphalting and asphalt coalification. For a detailed argument, see "On the Inorganic Causes of Coal" by the author of this article.
Provide support for the production of Daqing Oilfield to weigh 50 million tons
Modern scientific theories and experiments, space exploration and exploration and development practices have proved that the large-scale existence of oil is not premised on the existence of living matter; oil is synthesized by pre-existing hydrocarbon elements in the deep part of the earth below 100 km; the second law of thermodynamics prohibits the natural evolution of hydrocarbon molecules of the C-H system to the hydrocarbon molecules of the C-H system under any conditions; hydrocarbons are part of the mantle hydrocarbon alkali fluid under mantle conditions; in the process of mantle hydrocarbon fluid rise, due to the alkalinic interaction between the fluid and the surrounding rock, And at the critical temperature, it is converted into petroleum hydrothermal fluid rich in metallic, non-metallic and rare earth elements; petroleum hydrothermal fluid will be differentiated in the rising channel to form metallic, non-metallic, rare earth and oil and gas deposits; the oil and gas rise channel in the fault basin is a small fault-distance base slip fault, which is stored in the flower-like fault system controlled by the fault; the oil and gas distribution distance from the flower-like fault is not more than 2 km; the oil and gas rise channel in the depression basin is a back-impact fault inside the back-impact type orogenic belt, and it is stored near the back-impact fault The remaining petroleum hydrothermal fluid entering the fault basin water body will undergo differentiation to form chemical sediments and oil layers, and the oil layer will be further converted into petroleum asphalt due to hydration and oxidation; petroleum asphalt will be converted into coal seams after burial and pyrolysis. Natural gas entering oceanic water bodies and terrestrial tundra will form gas hydrates under suitable temperature and pressure conditions. Ocean hydrothermal vents, oceans and terrestrial mud volcanoes are windows to Earth's modern exhaust, and their powerful supply capacity proves that basins and reservoirs are receiving deep oil and gas supplies.
The basic elements of traditional petroleum geology — life, storage, cover, transportation, circle, and preservation — have changed. The "oil production layer" in the sedimentary basin no longer exists, and the "raw" here should be defined as "petroleum generation" or "oil production", which discusses how oil is generated under mantle conditions. The renewability of reserves should be listed as an important part of oil production research. The "reservoirs" in sedimentary basins have also changed, not all pore-infiltration layers in sedimentary basins can enrich oil and gas, but are limited to places near and no more than 2 km near the "gas source fault" and "oil source fault". Regardless of the degree of development, the reservoir space here undergoes the transformation of deep hydrocarbon-alkali fluids, and the degree of oil and gas enrichment is controlled by the stress-strain conditions of the reservoir itself. Reservoir studies need to add at least three elements: alkali accounting, stress-strain state, and position in the fracture system. With regard to "cover", which used to refer specifically to the cover layer, that is, the dense layer of sedimentary basins, such as mud shale, gypsum rock and salt rock, more attention should now be paid to the relativity of oil and gas reservoir cover.
Structural geology occupies a particularly important position in the study of various elements of petroleum geology. The control effect of vertical faults on oil and gas reservoirs requires that the study of oil transport must shift from the previous lateral transport problem to the vertical transport problem. The work of preferring traps needs to shift from static trap studies to special structural positions and trap relationship studies.
In short, the achievements of inorganic genesis research in Russia, the Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine, the geochemistry of hydrocarbon-alkali fluids in China, the study of continental layer control structure in China, the theory of chemical thermodynamics and high-pressure experiments in the United States and Russia, the research on the control of oil and gas by small fault-fault basal slip faults in Russia, the aerospace exploration in the United States and Europe, and the practice of a large number of oil exploration and development at home and abroad have made theoretical, technical, experimental and practical preparations for the establishment of a modern petroleum geology theory - mantle source oil and gas geology theory.
In summary, the theory and technology of mantle source oil and gas have provided support for the output of Daqing Oilfield to weigh 50 million tons. Theoretical basis: All industrial oil and gas come from the mantle, and the continuous upward supply, Daqing Oilfield still has huge production potential. In 2015, daqing changyuan central north 2-D5-oblique 25 wells obtained 70 square meters of self-injection wells, and in 2021, Daqing Changyuan south of the Portuguese slope 4347 wells obtained 102 square self-injection wells of daily oil. Technical route: The control factors of oil and gas reservoirs in fault basins have been clearly studied, that is, small faults and bottom slip fractures control oil and gas reservoirs. The slip fault itself is the oil supply channel, and the industrial oil and gas reservoirs are mainly distributed within a range of 1.5 kilometers from the slip fault. Specific measures: On the Daqing Changyuan, which has a comprehensive water content of 97%, 2,000 high-yield wells with a depth of 2,000 meters to 3,000 meters and a daily output of 100 tons are deployed.