Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous source rocks in the Norwegian Barents Sea, part II: Insights from open- and closed-system pyrolysis experiments

The petroleum generation potential of Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous organic rich shales from the southwestern Barents Sea was evaluated using bulk and quantitative pyrolysis analysis. Fifteen thermally-immature samples from the Hekkingen Formation with differing organic facies, as defined by maceral composition, were subjected to total organic carbon, Rock-Eval pyrolysis, pyrolysis gas chromatography, bulk kinetics, and micro-scale sealed vessel pyrolysis analyses. The results were employed to characterize differences in source rock kerogens, gross petroleum type, and the compositional evolution of the generated fluids as well as their physical properties (i.e. gas to oil ratio, saturation pressure, and formation volume factor) as a function of increasing maturity.