Sandstone intrusions: Implications for exploration and production

Sandstone intrusions, or sand injectites, are the natural product of syn-or post-depositional remobilization and injection of sand into surrounding strata due to overpressure, hydrocarbon migration, and seismicity. Reservoir-scale sandstone intrusions are likely to occur across all continents and in all sedimentary environments. Unlike small-scale sandstone intrusions that are often used to infer ancient earthquakes in continental sequencer, the km-scale sand injectities discovered in the North Sea are difficult to understand both in terms of driving and triggering mechanisms. The importance of sandstone intrusions for E&T includes reservoir occurrence, architecture and flow properties, inter-and intra-reservoir connectivity, fluid migration and drilling hazards.