Petroleum Geochemistry came to be known as a branch of science somewhere in 1959 from its beginnings in the application of chemistry to understand origin of petroleum and detect presence of oil and gas in the subsurface accumulations from the anomalous flux of methane through butanes in the surface soils and sediments. The growth in petroleum geochemistry has been directly related to the growth in instrumental methods of analysis. Surface geochemical prospecting, petroleum source rock evaluation, logging, source potential mapping, generative basin mapping, genetic classification of crude oils, natural gases and formation waters, oil to oil and oil to source and gas to gas and gas to source correlations, mapping petroleum quality occurrence trends and estimation of charge of hydrocarbons and geochemical genetic prospect prioritization employing genetic basin modeling are known techniques that are applied today towards risk-reduction and maximization of returns from various portfolios of exploration and development opportunities. A narrative is attempted to describe the developments in petroleum geochemistry in the last decade, 1990 to present day, in the backdrop of (i) first period of modern development and evolution of geochemical concepts of origin and occurrence of petroleum 1960-1980, (ii) the first period of consolidation of knowledge in petroleum geochemistry, 1980-1990 and testing and application of concepts with whatever was possible by various oil companies and academic institutions and (iii) the second period of consolidation of growth of knowledge 1990-todate and prolific application of petroleum geochemistry in as much desirable a fashion as possible by various oil companies and academic institutions witnessing emergence of reservoir geochemistry and highly geoscience integrative migration modeling techniques. Delineation and determining petroleum systems in all the major petroleum provinces of the world has been the most outstanding achievements of the decade. Use of fluid inclusion studies to understand petroleum systems has also been a major development. Introduction of inductively coupled plasma multiple collector mass spectrometry has been a significant development and soon shall bring some revolutionary results on determining petroleum systems based on isotope fingerprinting of organic matter bound trace elements in crude oils, bitumens and kerogens. Petroleum Geochemistry as science has come of age and is one of the imperatives in the trinity of geosciences, geology, geophysics and geochemistry meant to ensure risk reduction and maximization of value creation in petroleum exploration and development efforts
展开▼
