ABSTRACT: Control of Facies, Burial History, and Oil Migration on Diagenesis and Reservoir Quality: Maracaribo Basin, Venezuela

Santosh Kumar Ghosh, Juan Di Croce, Andreina Isea, Cesar Gonzalez

This regional study of the Eocene Misoa Formation is the first attempt to decipher the role of depositional facies, burial history, and timing of oil migration on diagenetic make-up and reservoir quality in the Maracaibo basin. Subsurface data including cores from 11 wells along a northwest-southeast transect in the Urdaneta, Lagunillas, and Barua-Motatan fields reveal that the depositional facies of the three sandstones range from mainly fluvial (Urdaneta) to deltaic-coastal marine in Lagunillas, and typically sublittoral in the Barua-Motatan area.

Both authigenic mineralogy and vitrinite reflectance data suggest progressively greater subsidence from the northwest to southeast. Thus, diagenetic grade is immature on the northwest in Urdaneta and mature to supermature in Barua-Motatan where greater mineralogical diversity and porosity/permeability reduction were noted. Similarly, compaction effects are minimum in Urdaneta, and maximum in Barua-Motatan where porosity is highly reduced, and is totally secondary in nature.

Other factors, such as grain size, presence of early pore-lining chlorite (in marine facies), infiltrated grain-coating clays (in fluvial facies), and proximity of reservoirs to the post-Eocene unconformity surface also helped preserve or enhance porosity.

Timing of oil migration also contributed to variable regional distribution of porosity and permeability. An early migration in the Urdaneta area helped retain much of the original porosity. In contrast, relatively late migration during upper Miocene, especially in the Barua-Motatan area on the southeast, permitted unimpeded silicification and pressure solution, and consequent destruction of all primary porosity.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91003©1990 AAPG Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, June 3-6, 1990