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Pore and Sorption Characteristics of Westphalian Shale Deposits in The Campine Basin

This document summarizes a study on the pore and sorption characteristics of Westphalian shale deposits in the Campine Basin of northeast Belgium. The shales differ from typical marine shales in their organic matter type and diagenetic history. Analysis using nitrogen adsorption, methane sorption, Rock-Eval pyrolysis, and X-ray diffraction found the shales to be clay-rich with illite as the dominant mineral. Total organic content was promising, averaging 5.44% with some samples over 10% or 20% organic matter. Nitrogen adsorption showed a correlation between illite content and micropore volume/surface area, but not organic content. Methane sorption increased with organic content, suggesting microp

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31 views2 pages

Pore and Sorption Characteristics of Westphalian Shale Deposits in The Campine Basin

This document summarizes a study on the pore and sorption characteristics of Westphalian shale deposits in the Campine Basin of northeast Belgium. The shales differ from typical marine shales in their organic matter type and diagenetic history. Analysis using nitrogen adsorption, methane sorption, Rock-Eval pyrolysis, and X-ray diffraction found the shales to be clay-rich with illite as the dominant mineral. Total organic content was promising, averaging 5.44% with some samples over 10% or 20% organic matter. Nitrogen adsorption showed a correlation between illite content and micropore volume/surface area, but not organic content. Methane sorption increased with organic content, suggesting microp

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KarthikPrakash
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Pore and sorption characteristics of


Westphalian shale deposits in the Campine
Basin
Conference Paper August 2015

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Pieter Bertier

University of Leuven

RWTH Aachen University

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Kris Piessens

Swennen Rudy

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

University of Leuven

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Pore and Sorption characteristics of Westphalian Shale deposits in


the Campine Basin
Wim Vandewijngaerde1,3, Pieter Bertier2, Kris Piessens3, Bernhard Krooss2, Philip
Weniger2, Rudy Swennen1
1
2
3

Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium


([email protected])
Energy & Mineral Resources Group, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany
Geological Survey of Belgium, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium

Present-day research in unconventional hydrocarbon systems is strongly focussed


on shale gas present in marine black shales. Similar research on other organic rich
deposits is very limited. This study focuses on the lacustrine and riverine shale
deposits of the Westphalian coal-bearing sequence in the Campine Basin (NE
Belgium). These differ from their marine counterparts in type of organic matter and
diagenetic processes, and reduced lateral continuity. Earlier work showed that these
shale deposits do have a potential to generate natural gas and condensates.
Reservoir characteristics, being porosity and sorption capacity, and factors
influencing them, were examined by means of subcritical nitrogen adsorption (BET),
high-pressure methane sorption, Rock-Eval pyrolysis and quantitative X-Ray
diffraction with Rietveld refinement.
The selected samples are in general clay-rich, with mostly illite as dominant mineral,
and mainly situated within the oil window. The total organic content (TOC) is
promising, with an average value of 5.44% and samples that can measure up 10%,
even 20% of organic matter in the sediment. N2 subcritical gas adsorption shows a
strong correlation between the amount of illite in the sample and the micropore
volume and surface area. In contrast, a similar relationship was not found for total
organic carbon (TOC). In fact, calculated surface energy values show that these
decrease with increasing TOC, thus indicating a very weak interaction between
nitrogen and the organic matter. This means that if micropores are present in the
organic matter, that these cannot be detected by N2 subcritical gas adsorption.
High-pressure experiments with CH4 provide contrasting results. The methane
excess sorption values at 15 MPa increase with higher TOC values, but there is no
correlation with illite content. The positive correlation with TOC suggests that there
indeed is a pore system present in the organic matter. This apparent contradiction
seems to confirm the weak interaction between nitrogen and the organic matter in at
least these samples.
Another hypothesis for this discrepancy that needs to be considered is the presence
of condensates blocking the pore areas for nitrogen sorption at low temperatures.
Additional sampling and other methods, such as subcritical gas adsorption with CO 2
and helium pycnometry will be conducted to study the pore characteristics of the
organic matter.
Overall from these results it can be concluded that illite content is at least one of the
parameters that defines the micro and mesoporosity of the sediment. Further
research steps are needed to verify that micropores are also present in organic
matter, and, if so, why it is not being revealed by subcritical N2 adsorption.

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