URTeC: 988 Kerogen-Bitumen-Porosity Nexus: Insights from Multi-Basinal Collocated SEM-Optical Light Petrography Shaina Kelly* 1 , Michelle Johnston 1 , Bernard Lee 2 , Richard San Martin 3 1. ConocoPhillips, 2. Innova Plex, 3. FIB-X Copyright 2019, Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) DOI 10.15530/urtec-2019-988 This paper was prepared for presentation at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference held in Denver, Colorado, USA, 22-24 July 2019. The URTeC Technical Program Committee accepted this presentation on the basis of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). The contents of this paper have not been reviewed by URTeC and URTeC does not warrant the accuracy, reliability, or timeliness of any information herein. All information is the responsibility of, and, is subject to corrections by the author(s). Any person or entity that relies on any information obtained from this paper does so at their own risk. The information herein does not necessarily reflect any position of URTeC. Any reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper by anyone other than the author without the written consent of URTeC is prohibited. Abstract Robust links between unconventional pore-scale properties, organic matter, and production trends remain unclear, despite numerous pore-scale characterization studies from various petro-technical disciplines. Specifically, a clear and/or widely agreed upon understanding of kerogen-bitumen-porosity relationships is currently lacking. This work explores an interdisciplinary petrographic methodology to link organic pore- associations and habit to geochemistry and, ultimately, petrophysics. The method directly collocates (overlays) high resolution mosaic scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images with reflected white and UV/fluorescent light images (organic matter petrography analysis), enabling the identification of various kerogen maceral types and bitumen within the monochromatic SEM images. Mosaic SEM images are leveraged to help ensure the statistical representativeness of the characterized area. The consistent application of this integrated imaging workflow across various rock types, maturity, and basins has enabled foundational insights into specific organic-matter porosity associations and trends. Introduction Understanding unconventional reservoirs requires examining the porosity and permeability hosted within the mudrock-based (clay and silt-sized grains; includes claystones, mudstones, chalks, siltstones, shales, etc.) stratigraphy of the petroleum system, typically characterized by low porosity and low permeability. Organic porosity, specifically, has been studied for less than a decade, and there is currently a lack of clear understanding of organic porosity development in unconventional mudstone reservoirs (Katz and Arango, 2018). Due to the small nature of the pore sizes, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is one method used to characterize nanoporosity hosted in the mineral matrices and/or organic matter (Loucks and Reed, 2014). However, SEM is limited in the ability to differentiate between different organic macerals, or individual organic matter constituents, found in the examined organic-rich shale/mudstone. Traditional methods for definitive organic matter determination include organic petrographic analyses using standard incident white light and UV microscopy under oil immersion. Organic petrography is limited to lower magnifications, approximately 50x magnification, compared to the high-magnification possible with SEM, allowing for resolutions up to approximately 2.5 nm/pixel and, correspondingly, pore features of around 5-10 nm. While SEM imaging of tight organic-rich samples has yielded troves of compelling monochromatic images of organic matter-hosted pore systems, a clear and/or widely agreed upon understanding of the kerogen-