Reservoir evaluation of dolomitized Devonian strata in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin: implications for carbon capture, utilization, and storage
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Differentially dolomitized carbonate strata in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) are increasingly targeted for carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), yet few studies have evaluated the petrophysical characteristics of these conventional hydrocarbon reservoirs for this purpose. To address this, this study uses drill-core analysis (sedimentology, diagenesis, pore morphology, and distribution), together with core-plug and production data, to evaluate the properties of five depleted oil and gas fields in the Middle to Upper Devonian Swan Hills Formation, Leduc Formation and Wabamun Group. The Swan Hills and Leduc formations are composed of reef, shoal, and lagoon deposits that are predominantly fossil-rich (e.g., stromatoporoid-dominated rudstones and boundstones). In contrast, the carbonate-ramp deposits of the Wabamun Group are fossil-poor, consisting instead of variably bioturbated carbonate mudstones, wackestones, and packstones. Replacement dolomitization is variable throughout each stratigraphic unit, but generally occurs within fossil-rich and/or heavily bioturbated intervals. Fracture densities are broadly comparable in limestone and dolostone. Porosity in the Swan Hills and Leduc formations is predominantly moldic and vuggy, occurring where fossils (e.g., stromatoporoids) are partially or fully dissolved. Pore space in the Wabamun Group is mostly restricted to intercrystalline porosity in burrows. In general, burial cements (e.g., calcite and dolomite) are volumetrically insignificant and only partially fill pores. Exceptions to this include porosity-occluding cements associated with fractures and breccias in the vicinity of faults. Dolomitization and depositional facies are found to exert a strong control on pore morphology, distribution, and interconnectivity. Porosity is principally controlled by the relative abundance of skeletal grains and by the presence of burrows. These highly porous facies acted as fluid pathways during burial diagenesis, resulting in their preferential dolomitization, solution enhancement of pre-existing pores, and creation of volume reduction-related porosity. The high CO2 storage capacity and low unplanned plume migration risk (due to depositional and/or diagenetic baffles) of dolomitized reefal reservoirs (e.g., Swan Hills and Leduc formations) make them more attractive targets for CCUS than those with limited capacity and/or potential migration pathways (e.g., fault-related fractures and breccias in the Wabamun Group). These results demonstrate that drill-core analysis, in combination with legacy data, can provide valuable insights into the factors that control reservoir CO2 injectivity, plume migration, and storage capacity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".