Integrated Reservoir Characterization Study of the McKee Formation, Onshore Taranaki Basin, New Zealand

Abstract

The Late Eocene onshore McKee Formation is a producing reservoir rock in Taranaki Basin, New Zealand. An integrated petrophysical, sedimentological, and petrographical study was conducted to evaluate the reservoir characteristics of the McKee sandstone. A petrographic study of the McKee Formation classified the sandstone as arkose based on the Pettijohn classification. Porosity analysis showed predominantly intergranular porosity, as elucidated by the thin section photomicrographs. The good reservoir quality of McKee sandstone was suggested to be the result of the presence of secondary dissolution pores interconnected with the primary intergranular network. Mineral dissolution was found to be the main process that enhanced porosity in all the studied wells. On the other hand, the presence of clay minerals, cementation, and compaction were identified as the main porosity-reducing agents. These features, however, were observed to occur only locally, thus having no major impact on the overall reservoir quality of the McKee Formation. For a more detailed reservoir characterization, well log analysis was also applied in the evaluation of the McKee Formation. The result of the well log analysis showed that the average porosity ranged from 11.8% to 15.9%, with high hydrocarbon saturation ranging from 61.8% to 89.9% and clay volume content ranging from 14.9 to its highest value of 34.5%. Based on the well log analysis, the derived petrophysical and reservoir parameters exhibited good porosity, low clay content, and high hydrocarbon saturation, which indicates that the McKee Formation is a promising reservoir.

Integrated reservoir characterization and fluid flow distribution of the Kaimiro Formation, Taranaki Basin, New Zealand

“…On the other hand, Higgs et al (2017) accomplished a reservoir characterization on the same formation of interest utilizing an interdisciplinary method, which include biostratigraphy, log facies and stratigraphic correlation of the formation. Additionally, similar integrated reservoir characterization studies in the Taranaki Basin have previously been made such as Jumat et al (2018), Dong et al (2018), Qadri et al (2019a) and in many other fields such as Shalaby et al (2014aShalaby et al ( , b, 2016Shalaby et al ( , 2018, Shalaby and Islam (2017), Osli et al (2018) and Qadri et al (2019b). According to Cade et al (1994), the performance and presentation of sandstone reservoir are mainly influenced by various factors, such as the textural and diagenetic properties like grain size, sorting type, compaction, cementation and dissolution.…”

“…5). The decrease in permeability with depth in contradiction of porosity can be attributed to the presence of some cementing and authigenic clayey materials which may affect the permeability not the porosity (Shalaby et al 2014a(Shalaby et al , b, 2016Jumat et al 2018;Dong et al 2018;Osli et al 2018). Therefore, the petrographic description is important to explain and validate the reasons behind the features.…”

Petrophysical characteristics and reservoir quality evaluation of deep water turbidite sandstones of the Mount Messenger Formation, New Zealand

“…Quartz overgrowth was observed in Fig. 5e which was identified based on the presence of dust rim surrounded around the original grain and within the new growth; these are also known as syntaxial overgrowth (Dong et al 2018). Even though quartz overgrowth slightly reduces the porosity, it does not have any negative consequence on the reservoir quality.…”

“…These concepts have been suggested and applied in several works by Timur (1968), Winland (1972Winland ( , 1976, Granberry and Keelan (1977), Kolodzie (1980), Swanson (1981), Katz and Thompson (1986), Thompson et al (1987), Hartmann and Coalson (1990), Pittman (1992), Amaefule et al (1993), Doveton (1995), Martin et al (1997), Tiab and Donaldson (2004), Peters (2012), Leal et al (2015), Nabawy and Al-Azazi (2015), Kassab and Teama (2018), and Islam et al (2021). Numerous studies in terms of reservoir characterization have been performed on many formations of the Taranaki Basin (Qadri et al 2016(Qadri et al , 2017Jumat et al 2018;Dong et al 2018;Shalaby et al 2020) to interpret the reservoir quality. Radwan et al (2021) worked on the characterization of sedimentological and petrophysical properties of the Mount Messenger Formation, but limited to field scale (only Ngatoro-2 and Ngatoro-3 wells were studied covering one field) which assumes insufficient to characterize the Mount Messenger Formation; however, this basin scale study includes five fields covering 11 wells which seems more comprehensive way of reservoir characterization.…”

Reservoir quality evaluation of the Farewell sandstone by integrating sedimentological and well log analysis in the Kupe South Field, Taranaki Basin-New Zealand

“…A very limited number of scientists have focused on investigating the reservoir quality within New Zealand. The research by Martin et al (1994), Griffin et al (2015), Higgs et al (2017) and Jumat et al 2018 evaluated the reservoir quality on a basin scale, whereas very few studies (e.g., Dong et al 2018;Shalaby et al 2020) have utilized the integrated analysis to establish the reservoir quality on a field scale within the Taranaki Basin, thus leaving behind an ample scope of conducting a detailed investigation using sedimentological and well log analyses to determine the reservoir quality of the Farewell Formation within the Kupe South Field. The sedimentological analysis highlights the texture, detrital mineralogy, diagenetic phases and their impact on the reservoir quality.…”