Advances and Trends of Sedimentology in Chinese Oil and Gas Exploration and Development

Key words: 
• source-to-sink system sedimentology /
• deep-ultra-deep reservoir /
• non-marine shale sedimentology /
• artificial intelligence core technology

Abstract: [Significance] The development of sedimentology depends on industrial exploration of mineral resources such as oil and gas. Additionally, advances in sedimentology and oil and gas exploration and development practices have relation of mutual promotion. The derived subjects of sedimentology such as carbonate sedimentology, deep-water gravity flow sedimentology, and fine-grained sedimentology have promoted global oil and gas reserve and production increase in carbonate, deep-water, and unconventional fields. [Progress] Recent advances in source-to-sink system and stratigraphic forward modeling on sedimentary constraints, non-marine shale sedimentary characteristics and their impact on hydrocarbon potential, deep-ultra-deep carbonate reservoir development and preservation mechanism, genesis analysis and evaluation of low-permeability and tight reservoir heterogeneity have provided a guideline for favorable zones evaluation and optimization, well deployment, and development program in oil and gas exploration and production. [Conclusions and Prospects] Continuous development of oil and gas exploration practices pushes forward research expansion into deep-ultra-deep, unconventional, and complex reservoirs. The future trends of sedimentology include source-to-sink system sedimentology, sedimentary and stratigraphic forward modeling technological innovation, non-marine shale sedimentology, quantitative evaluation of reservoir heterogeneity, and artificial intelligence analysis system. The advances of sedimentology will certainly boost the high-quality development of international and domestic oil and gas industry and make new contributions to “Non-marine Shale Revolution”.