Geological characteristics and exploration of shale oil in Chang 7 Member of Triassic Yanchang Formation, Ordos Basin, NW China

A set of shale-dominated source rocks series were deposited during the heyday of lake basin development in the Member 7 of Triassic Yanchang Formation, Ordos Basin, and the thickness is about 110 m. Aimed at whether this layer can form large-scale oil enrichment of industrial value, comprehensive geological research and exploration practice have been carried out for years and obtained the following important geologic findings. Firstly, widely distributed black shale and dark mudstone with an average organic matter abundance of 13.81% and 3.74%, respectively, lay solid material foundation for the formation of shale oil. Secondly, sandy rocks sandwiched in thick organic-rich shale formations constitute an oil-rich “sweet spot”, the average thickness of thin sandstone is 3.5 m. Thirdly, fine-grained sandstone and siltstone reservoirs have mainly small pores of 2–8 μm and throats of 20–150 nm in radius, but with a large number of micro-pores and nano-throats, through fracturing, the reservoirs can provide good conductivity for the fluid in it. Fourthly, continued high-intensity hydrocarbon generation led to a pressure difference between the source rock and thin-layer reservoir of up to 8–16 MPa during geological history, driven by the high pressure, the oil charged into the reservoirs in large area, with oil saturation reaching more than 70%. Under the guidance of the above theory, in 2019, the Qingcheng Oilfield with geologic oil reserves of billion ton order was proved in the class I multi-stage superimposed sandstone shale reservoir of Chang 7 Member by the Changqing Oilfield Branch through implementation of overall exploration and horizontal well volume fracturing. Two risk exploration horizontal wells were deployed for the class II thick layer mud shale interbedded with thin layers of silt- and fine-sandstones reservoir in the Chang 73 submember, and they were tested high yield oil flows of more than 100 tons per day, marking major breakthroughs in petroleum exploration in class I shale reservoirs. The new discoveries have expanded the domain of unconventional petroleum exploration.