1887
Volume 4, Issue 4
  • ISSN: 1354-0793
  • E-ISSN:

Abstract

Hydrocarbon exploration wells provide sufficient information to analyse the present-day thermal regime in the Celtic Sea basins. This information consists of bottom hole temperatures (BHTs), geophysical well logs, composite logs and rock cuttings from the major formations. The BHTs provide numerous but low-quality data which require extensive processing before they provide reliable estimates of formation temperature. Standard corrections (Horner plots) to multiple BHTs can be modified to correct single BHT measurements. A least-squares inversion based on a thermal resistance (Bullard) model for conductive heat flow can map many noisy Horner-corrected BHTs into a set of formation temperature estimates with relatively small errors. The average geothermal gradient is 32 degrees C km (super -1) . Laboratory measurements of the thermal conductivity of rock cuttings taken from representative formations in selected wells give matrix conductivities at room temperature. These sample measurements are combined with information about formation porosity and temperature to give in situ thermal conductivities for each formation in each well. These are then used with formation temperature gradients from the BHT analysis to estimate heat flow. The heat flow obtained for the Celtic Sea basins varies between 59 and 81 mW m (super -2) . The highest values appear to be where sediments are thickest.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1144/petgeo.4.4.317
1998-11-01
2024-03-29
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1144/petgeo.4.4.317
Loading
  • Article Type: Other

Most Cited This Month Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error