Some individual views about the quantitative evaluation of hydrocarbon source rock

Quantitative evaluation of hydrocarbon source rock is important basis of resource evaluation upon the principle of hydrocarbon formation. Although the techniques and methods for the quantitative evaluation of hydrocarbon source rock are increasingly developed, there still some problems to be solved: (1) there are disagreements on the definition of hydrocarbon source rock, in which the difference between hydrocarbon source rock and effective hydrocarbon source rock must be distinguished; (2) in determining the volume of effective hydrocarbon source rock, it should be clear that matured hydrocarbon source rock is not equal to effective hydrocarbon source rock, and the criterion for determining the thickness of effective hydrocarbon source rock has to reconsidered because of the heterogeneity of hydrocarbon source rock and the negation of the effective thickness of hydrocarbon source rock; (3) much of the retention hydrocarbon in source rock is lost due to sampling, preservation etc. But the corresponding correction is not paid much attention yet and the correction methods applied now are not very reliable. In addition, the characters of retention hydrocarbon evolution simulated by chloroform bitumen A or pyrolysis parameter S 1 are not very reliable either. The problems mentioned above will all influence the results of resource evaluation greatly.