Characteristics and exploration prospects of Middle Permian reservoirs in the Sichuan Basin

In recent years, encouraging progress has been made in the Middle Permian natural gas exploration in the Sichuan Basin – numerous wells have obtained high-yield industrial gas flows in the dolomite porous reservoir sections in the Middle Permian Maokou Formation and the Qixia Formation, making the Middle Permian one of the most realistic replacement strata at present. In order to clarify the further exploration prospect of the basin, the Middle Permian depositional settings and prospective reservoir types were analyzed. The results show that: (1) the depositional environment was predominately open, shallow water; the paleogeomorphology was high in the west and low in the east, with bioclastic flat reservoirs more extensive in the middle-west part than the east part; crustal extension made Middle Permian deposits have good conditions for thermal water deposition and hydrothermal alteration; and (2) the prospect reservoirs for exploration were shoal facies dolomite porous reservoir of the Qixia Formation, thermal water dolomite porous reservoir and karst reservoir of the Maokou Formation, thus, dolomite porous reservoir was the most perspective target in the Middle Permian. It is concluded that Middle Permian limestone source rocks have large hydrocarbon generation intensity in the northern part of Western and Central Sichuan Basin and have the material basis for the formation of large-medium gas fields; the thick dolomite reservoir of the Qixia Formation in the Western Sichuan Basin is the most prospective reservoir in the Middle Permian; three types of reservoirs are distributed in the Central Sichuan Basin, and they are superimposed vertically with large exploration potential; Jiange–Nanchong–Fengdu region is located in the thermal sub-basin zone, where the thermal water dolomite reservoir of the Maokou formation is pervasive and superimposed on the karst reservoir of the Maokou Formation, showing good natural gas exploration prospects.