RESINS AND ASPHALTENES IN THE GENERATION AND MIGRATION OF PETROLEUM

Resins and asphaltenes are valuable indicators of the origin of sedimentary organic matter in a rock and of its thermal evolution. Oil asphaltenes can be considered as reservoired kerogen moieties, and enable correlations with source-rock asphaltenes and parent kerogen. Asphaltene pyrolysis products are compositionally similar to the oil itself, when it has not suffered secondary alteration. Thus, pyrolysis of asphaltenes from degraded oils generates saturated hydrocarbon distributions similar to those of the original oil. Comparison of asphaltene pyrolysis products with the rock extract itself gives an indication of effects and degree of migration processes.