Characteristics and influencing factors of Cretaceous reservoir in eastern depression of North Yellow Sea basin

Cretaceous is the key exploration target layer in the eastern depression of North Yellow Sea basin, which has a good prospect for oil and gas exploration. Its huge oil and gas resource potential has attracted great attention from petroleum geologists. In this study, the main rock types, reservoir space types, petrophysical characteristics and main controlling factors of Cretaceous reservoir are studied through core observation, thin section identification, petrophysical analysis and scanning electron microscope observation. The results indicate that the main rock types of Cretaceous reservoir in the eastern depression of North Yellow Sea basin are lithic arkose, feldspar lithic sandstone, some feldspar sandstone and a small amount of lithic sandstone. The average porosity is 6.9%, and the average permeability is 0.46 × 10−3 μm, so Cretaceous reservoir in the study area has poor petrophysical characteristics and belongs to low porosity and low permeability reservoir. Cretaceous reservoirs in the study area mainly develop in secondary pores, which are dominated by dissolution pores (including intragranular pores, intercrystalline pores and cleavage pores), followed by fractures. The main factors affecting petrophysical characteristics of Cretaceous reservoir in the study area are provenance properties, sedimentation, diagenesis (including compaction, cementation and dissolution) and tectonism. The provenance properties and sedimentation are the prerequisite conditions affecting petrophysical characteristics. Petrophysical characteristics of feldspar sandstone of Cretaceous reservoir in the study area and lithic arkose are better than that of feldspar lithic sandstone. Both compaction and cementation reduce the porosity and permeability of Cretaceous reservoir in the study area and make petrophysical characteristics become poor, whereas the dissolution and tectonism play an important role in improving petrophysical characteristics of Cretaceous reservoir.