25th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry IMOG 2011

O-23
Novel applications of trace metals and Molybdenum isotopes in
petroleum fluid studies
Sander van den Boorn 1 , Riccardo Avanzinelli 2,4 , Pim van Bergen 3 , Tim Elliott 2 , Corey
Archer 2 , Andrew Bishop 1 , Volker Dieckmann 1
1 Shell Projects and Technology, Rijswijk, Netherlands, 2 University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom, 3 Shell
Upstream <strong>International</strong>, Aberdeen, United Kingdom, 4 Università degli Studi di Firenze, Firenze, Italy
(corresponding author:sander.van-den-boorn@shell.com)
The application of metals data in petroleum geochemistry
has been traditionally restricted to nickel (Ni) and vanadium
(V). Crude oils contain many other metal species, which are
routinely characterized in refining because of their role as
catalyst poisons. However, the geochemical significance of
metals other than Ni or V has not been well described, in
part due to historical limitations on their accurate
quantification. These metals have the potential to provide
additional valuable insights in to the origins of petroleum and
changes taking place during migration and accumulation.
Furthermore, recent developments in MC-ICP-MS have
opened up the field of non-traditional stable metal isotopes
(e.g. Mo) that may have applications in petroleum fluid
studies given their susceptibility to exhibit diagnostic
fractionation patterns (e.g. Anbar and Rouxel, 2007).
In this study analytical techniques to measure a large
number of trace metal concentrations and Mo isotope ratios
(reported as δ 98 Mo) in oils were developed. The extraction
procedure involves ashing crude oils in pressurized quartz
vessels in a High Pressure Asher (HPA) which results in the
quantitative removal of the organic matrix. Trace element
analyses were performed using ICP-MS with good precision
(