2025 GCAGS Journal, Vol. 14
TITLE
Factors Influencing Diagenesis and Reservoir Quality in Potential Lithium-Enriched Brine Reservoirs of the Northeastern Texas Smackover Formation
AUTHOR(S)
Robert G. Loucks
ABSTRACT
Forecasting reservoir quality is a significant risk factor when hydrocarbons or lithium-enriched brines are being produced from the Smackover reservoirs in northeastern Texas. Reservoir quality in Smackover carbonates depends on lithofacies and diagenesis. While lithofacies mapping is consistent and well-defined through wireline-log correlations, understanding the complex effects of diagenesis is much more difficult. Dolomitization, essential for creating high-quality reservoirs, varies laterally across the region, leading to differences in reservoir quality. Seepage reflux from overlying Buckner evaporite brines is likely the cause of dolomitization. The best reservoirs are highly dolomitized, mixed-coated-grainstone sections at the top of the Smackover interval, composed of ooids, oncoids, and other microbial-coated grains. These reservoirs exhibit up to 30% porosity and permeability, ranging up to hundreds to thousands of millidarcys, with pore networks consisting primarily of oomoldic and intercrystalline pores. Detailed analysis of two mineralogically contrasting cores from northeastern Texas highlights the influence of diagenetic histories on reservoir quality.
PAGE(S)
12-22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.62371/IFHS5236
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