Constraining reservoir residence time and timing of crude oil biodegradation in western Canada

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Being able to date geological events such as the age of the Earth has been one of the most significant acheivments of science. This project is developing methods for directly measuring, from analysis of the oil, how long the oil and gas we find today in a specific reservoir has been there. Surprisingly this is not possible at the moment! Being able to date how long oil has been in a reservoir is very important in understanding the timescales of alteration of light oils to heavy oils and oil sands and also gives us a lot of information on how the oils enter the reservoir and how to find the best quality oils to produce in Canada's heavy oil reservoirs. This will help increase recovery and reduce CO2 emissions in Canada's heavy oil belt. Dating the time oil has been in a reservoir also allows us to assess how leaky the caprock of the reservoir is to oil and gas and thus allows us to assess how effective some reservoirs would be as sites for industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) storage in the subsurface (carbon dioxide sequestration). Such deep CO2 storage is an important part (1/3) of Canada's plans for mitigating its CO2 emissions and climate change and being able to tell how effective caprocks are is very important. The project will train several students and postdoctoral scientists, and will further demonstrate to the world the cutting edge, ambitious research at Canadian universities.