Characteristics of Volcanic Reservoirs

Volcanic rocks are a series of products formed by volcanism. They are very different
from sedimentary rocks in terms of formation conditions, development environments, and
distribution rules Since the 1960s when volcanic reservoirs were discovered in hydrocarbon-
bearing basins across China, scientists conducted a massive amount of research on various
aspects of volcanic reservoirs, including rock characteristics, lithofacies combinations,
development environments, reservoir space, reservoir capacity, and con-trolling factors.
During the research, however, problems suchas chaotic classification and naming, and
conceptual ambiguity, for example, were introduced into the literature, because the
researchers had different research purposes and objects, they chose different systems of
volcanic reservoir classification. This resulted in issues such as the same name having
different meanings, different names having the same meaning, and so on. Thus, correlating
volcanic rocks acrossregions and communicating with the fundamental geologic research
community were difficult. Unification of volcanic rock classification and naming is a challenge
that urgently needs to be resolved. We must establish a set of volcanic reservoir concepts
based on the unified rock and lithofacies classification and naming system in volcanic geologic
research, by emphasizing the operability and practicability in lithology and lithofacies study on
volcanic reservoirs in hydrocarbon bearing basins, and by focusing on the relationship
between lithofacies and the reservoirs physical properties. At the same time, two
requirements must be satisfied simultaneously, i.e. the practicability of hydrocarbon
exploration, and communications in the fundamental research field

Volcanic hydrocarbon reservoir geology is a comprehensive geologic discipline that

studies the developmental structural environment, genetic type, characteristics, formation,
evolution, geometric shape, distribution rules, reservoir research method and description
technique, and reservoir evaluation and prediction of volcanic reservoirs in hydrocarbon-
bearing basins. Research in volcanic hydrocarbon reservoir geology must provide the
scientific basis for volcanic hydrocarbon exploration by focusing more on crossing and
integrating multiple disciplines, i.e. combining theories such as structural geology, petroleum
geology, reservoir geology, volcanology, volcanic geology, petrology, and reservoir physics,
and applying techniques and methods such as seismic, nonseismic, logging, mathematic
geology, and computer technology. The volcanic reservoir itself is characterized by significant
changes of scale and physical properties and high heterogeneity; and its rock texture, mineral
composition, genesis, reservoir space formation and evolution, reservoir flow unit, reservoir
effectiveness and sensitivity, hydrocarbon accumulation process, and main control factors are
all obviously different from those of a sedimentary reservoir. All vesicular structures developed
in volcanic rock itself are affected by filling during volcanism and its subsequent diagenetic
alteration process. Volcanic reservoirs today have all undergone later transformation. The task
of volcanic hydrocarbon reservoir geology is to provide the theoretical basis for driving volcanic
hydrocarbon exploration and development and to promote advances of fundamental research
in volcanic petroleum geology in sedimentary basins by looking deeply into the characteristics
of volcanic reservoirs, such as their macroscopic throughgoing, internal texture, reservoir
parameters distribution, and pore structure. In addition, the dynamic change characteristics of
reservoir parameters during development of volcanic oil and gas fields, ascertaining the main
control factors of reservoir development, predicting effective reservoirs and evaluating their
distribution, and creating the volcanic reservoir development evaluation technique are also
important.