Abstract:
The Daniudi Gas Field is one of the typical tight sandstone gas fields in the Ordos Basin. In order to better understand the genetic types and source of natural gas and reveal the migration phase of natural gas, the geochemical analysis of light hydrocarbons in the Upper Paleozoic tight gas from the Daniudi Gas Field has been conducted in this study. The results indicate that, the C
5-7 light hydrocarbons in the Upper Paleozoic tight gas are dominated by
iso-alkanes, and the C
6-7 light hydrocarbons display low contents of aromatics (< 10%), which are even undetectable. The C
7 light hydrocarbons are dominated by methylcyclohexane (MCH) with the relative MCH contents exceeding 50%. The
K1 and
K2 values of natural gas from the Lower Shihezi Formation (P
1x) are consistent with those from the Shanxi (P
1s) and Taiyuan (C
3t) formations, respectively. The
δ13C
1 values of the P
1x gas are consistent with those of the P
1s gas and significantly different from those of the C
3t gas. Compared with the P
1s gas, the P
1x gas mainly displays lower benzene/
n-hexane, benzene/cyclohexane and toluene/
n-heptane ratios, as well as significantly higher
n-heptane/methylcyclohexane ratios. Geochemical characteristics of light hydrocarbons and carbon and hydrogen isotopic compositions of alkanes indicate that, the Upper Paleozoic natural gas from the Daniudi Gas Field is typical coal-derived gas. The P
1s and C
3t gases were in-situ self-generated and self-accumulated, whereas the P
1x gas was mainly derived from the underlying P
1s source rocks and accumulated via vertical migration in free phase, with insignificant contributions of the C
3t source rocks. Due to the effect of migration and water solution of natural gas, the deviation exists in the identification of thermal maturity for tight gas from the Daniudi Gas Field using the light hydrocarbon indexes such as heptane and isoheptane values and benzene/
n-hexane ratios.