Reservoir

Engineering

Lecture 1/Hydrocarbon Traps

Hydrocarbon Traps:
Definition : Trap can be defined as any geometric arrangement of rock that permits
significant accumulation of hydrocarbons in the subsurface. A trap must include a
reservoir rock in which to store hydrocarbons, and a seal or set of seals that impede or
stop migration out of the reservoir.
Several geologic structures may act as petroleum traps but all have two basic conditions
in common:
• Porous, permeable reservoir rock that will contain quantities of oil and gas that make
it worth drilling
• Impermeable cap rock that traps oil and gas and prevent it from escaping to the
surface.

The process of trapping is shown in the next figure.

Hydrocarbon Traps:
Traps can be divided into four broad categories: structural traps, stratigraphic traps,
Hydrodynamic traps and combination traps.
1. Structural Traps : occur when the reservoir formation deforms in some way. Those
traps are subdivided into fold traps, traps associated with faults, traps associated with
piercement features, and combination traps that require elements of both faults and
folds for effectiveness.
2. Stratigraphic Traps : are traps in which porosity and/or permeability has changed
within a formation or where a nonporous layers seals off the top of a reservoir.
3. Hydrodynamic Traps: trapping of hydrocarbons by strong flow of porewater.
4. Combination Traps: that exhibit both structural and stratigraphic elements.

Structural Hydrocarbon Traps

Cause : Post depositional modifications of the reservoir rocks.
in general the types for structural tarps are (Fold traps / compression or compaction, Fault
traps and Salt dome traps).
Hydrocarbon Traps:
• Fold (Anticline) Traps:
In an anticline traps, rock layers that are originally laid down horizontally become folded
upward into an arch.
Of course, hydrocarbons being lighter than water tend to migrate to the top of anticline
until they reach the cap rock.
Note: Cap rock is a non permeable rock that prevents the hydrocarbon from moving
upward.

Fold traps can be formed due to compressional deformation effects (fault free), or caused
due to deposition features and compaction effects (fault related).
Hydrocarbon Traps:
• Fault traps: are those traps that caused by earth movement. A fault trap is one
where a fracture or break in rock layers caused earth movement.

In a fault trap, after the break and separation of the reservoir rock each half of the rock
butts up against an impermeable rock layers; thus migrating hydrocarbons become
trapped.
Its important to know that faults can act as seals or leak points.
Hydrocarbon Traps:
• Salt Dome traps: as the salt pushed through the rock layers, it tilted the layers it
pierced and folded the layers above the layers that were not pierced. Salt is not
permeable therefore, hydrocarbons become trapped against the salt.
Hydrocarbon Traps:
Stratigraphic Hydrocarbon Traps:
This type of traps occurred due to variations in lithology.
There are two categories for this type of traps which are:
• Traps occurred next to unconformities (above or below)
• Traps occurred within normal conformable sequences

So types of stratigraphic traps are

1. Unconformity Stratigraphic traps:
An unconformity trap is caused when an older porous and permeable rock layer eroded
and was then overlaid with impermeable cap rock.
This kind of traps result from variations that developed after sedimentation, mainly
because of digenesis.
Hydrocarbon Traps:
In general there are three types of unconformities which are shown in figures below
Hydrocarbon Traps:
2. Stratigraphic traps that result from variation in facies that developed during
sedimentation, these include features such as lenses, pinch outs and reefs.
Hydrocarbon Traps:
3. Hydrodynamic traps: if porewater in a sedimentary basin is strong enough, the oil-
water contact may deviate from the horizontal because of the hydrodynamic shear
stress that is set up. In some cases oil may accumulate and trapped by cap rocks if they
found, as it can be shown in figure below.
Hydrocarbon Traps:
4. Combination Traps: that exhibit both structural and stratigraphic elements