Home – Home – Jornals – Russian Geology and Geophysics 2004 number 7

A new model simulates the size distribution of oil and gas fields in natural systems as a function of accumulation and dissipation rates described by equations with random parameters. The obtained model size distributions for large and largest oil and gas fields are approximated to a high accuracy by a truncated Pareto distribution. The conditions in which slowly dissipating fields predominate and most fields reach a steady state correspond to a ~ 2 power Pareto distribution. The distribution of actively forming or actively degrading fields is approximated by distribution with a power considerably below 2 (tested qualitatively against field data), and >2 power represent the distribution of fields in poor conservation conditions. The percentage of small fields is lower in systems with a greater number of rapidly accumulating fields. If most fields in a system have high accumulation rates, their distribution can become no longer amodal in the observed domain.