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Relationship between load, migration, hydrocarbon expulsion and thermal history in the Nunchía syncline, Piedmont of the Eastern Cordillera

10.24050/reia.v22i43.1844
Published 2025-01-01
Articles

Abstract

The Cusiana, Cupiagua, and Pauto-Floreña fields, located in the central foothills of the eastern part of Colombia's Eastern Cordillera, represent 97% of the country's wet gas production. This research aims to define the critical moments in hydrocarbon generation and charging in the central part of the Nunchía syncline, near the Cupiagua field, and to relate them to the thermal history of the study area as derived from traditional 1D petroleum system modeling and from new thermochronological dating. For this purpose, based on a structural transect and the integration of geochemical, well, thermochronological and structural data, we evaluated the processes of thermal maturity, hydrocarbon generation, and expulsion, distinguishing between oil and gas, in the Golconda-1 well, the PSW Nunchía pseudo-well, and the Ramiriquí-1 well through multi-1D petroleum systems modeling. The results yielded a model of generation and expulsion from the "hinterland" and "foothills" area, with hydrocarbon migration from west to east. This migration process occurred during the Late Miocene-Pliocene and was interrupted by the last phase of exhumation in the Llanos foothills, which completed the configuration of traps such as those in Cusiana and Cupiagua. Due to the level of thermal maturity reached, situated between the end of the oil window and the beginning of the gas window, light crude and wet gas hydrocarbons were trapped, with the presence of both natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas.

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Authors

  • Gleubis Belén Silveira-Moreno

    Colombia

  • Ana Jazmín Rodríguez-Lara

    Colombia

  • Mauricio Alberto Bermudez Cella

    Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia

  • Andrés Felipe Alarcón-Bonilla

    Colombia

  • César Augusto Mora-Hernández

    Colombia

  • Fabián Ramiro Castillo-Rodríguez

    Colombia

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