Kerogen Kinetics and Cracking of Oil

The conversion of organic matter into a mixture of lighter organic compounds and fluid compounds, which subsequently can crack, is modeled according to the concept of distributed kinetics in a series of first order reactions.

By default the kinetic data set is given as a discrete data set of 11 reacting organic minerals, and 8 reacting fluid compounds (123D Technology, 2019). These reactions also produce 2 inert minerals and 5 inert fluid compounds.

Alternatively the discrete data sets proposed by Behar (2010), Burnham & Sweeney proposed (1991), Tissot and Espitalie (1975), Tissot et al. (1987) or Pepper and Corvi's (1995) Gaussian distributed data set can be chosen as a complete set of data. Finally either the discrete kinetic data set or the Gaussian distributed kinetic data set can be assigned by the user.

In the alternative data sets the cracking of oil into gas is modeled as a first order reaction and by default based on the data published by Burnham & Sweeney (1991). When the kerogen model by Tissot and Espitalie (1975) or Tissot et al. (1987) is chosen, the oil cracking data published by du Rouchet (1980) is used. When the kerogen model by Pepper and Corvi (1995) is chosen, their oil cracking data set is used. Alternatively user-assigned data can be applied.

The first principles organic kinetics concept is presented here.