scholarly journals Investigation on the Influence of Water-Shale Interaction on Stress Sensitivity of Organic-Rich Shale

Geofluids ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangjun Liu ◽  
Yan Zhuang ◽  
Lixi Liang ◽  
Jian Xiong

Shale reservoirs are characterized by low permeability and natural fractures. In the process of reservoir development, the working fluid enters the reservoir. This may result in the formation of new fractures or expansion of natural fractures. When shale reservoirs are exploited, the fluid pressure in the fracture or pore is reduced. This destroys the stress balance of the reservoir, produces stress sensitivity damage, and reduces the reservoir permeability. Organic-rich shale from the Yanchang Formation, Chang 7 Member of the Ordos Basin, was selected for core flow experiment with helium. The effects of the type of brine, salinity, and soaking time on the stress sensitivity of an organic-rich shale reservoir were investigated. The acoustic characteristics were also investigated to study the effect of interactions between water and shale on stress sensitivity. The experimental results demonstrate that the interactions of water and shale increase the permeability of shale and reduce its stress sensitivity. Furthermore, when the permeability of the shale is excessively low, the stress sensitivity is high. In the acoustic studies, a higher attenuation coefficient of the acoustic wave corresponds to a larger variation in the shale structure and thus a larger permeability of the shale and smaller stress sensitivity coefficient. Whereas there is no apparent effect of the salt water type on the stress sensitivity, higher salinity levels cause higher stress sensitivity. After reacting with 15000 mg/L brine, the stress sensitivity coefficient of shale did not decrease significantly compared with that before action, all of which were above 0.97. However, after reacting with distilled water or 5000 mg/L brine, the stress sensitivity coefficient of shale decreased significantly, and all of them decreased to less than 0.9. Longer water exposures, corresponding to an increased duration of water-shale interactions, result in higher impacts on the stress sensitivity of shale. After 6 hours of shale-brine interaction, the stress sensitivity coefficient of shale is as high as 0.93, while after 48 hours of shale-brine interaction, the stress sensitivity coefficient of shale is reduced to 0.88. This study provides a highly effective reference with regard to the influence of the working fluid on the reservoir during drilling operations and the study of reservoir characteristics after fracturing.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikita Vladislavovich Dubinya ◽  
Sergey Andreevich Tikhotskiy ◽  
Sergey Vladimirovich Fomichev ◽  
Sergey Vladimirovich Golovin

Abstract The paper presents an algorithm for the search of the optimal frilling trajectory for a deviated well which is applicable for development of naturally fractured reservoirs. Criterion for identifying the optimal trajectory is the feature of the current study – optimal trajectory is chosen from the perspective of maximizing the positive effect related to activation of natural fractures in well surrounding rock masses caused by changes of the rocks stress-strain state due to drilling process. Drilling of a deviated well is shown to lead to the process of natural fractures in the vicinity of the well becoming hydraulically conductive due to drilling. The paper investigates the main natural factors – tectonic stresses and fluid pressure – and drilling parameters – drilling trajectory and mud pressure – influencing the number and variety of natural fractures being activated due to drilling process. An algorithm of finding the optimal drilling parameters from the perspective of natural fractures activation is proposed as well. Different theoretical scenarios are considered to formulate the general recommendations on drilling trajectory choice according to estimations of stress state of the reservoir. These estimations can be provided based on results of three- and four-dimensional geomechanical modeling. Such modeling may be completed as well for constructing geomechanically consistent natural fracture model which can be used to optimize drilling trajectories during exploration and development of certain objects. The paper presents a detailed algorithm of constructing such fracture models and deviated wells trajectories optimization. The results presented in the paper and given recommendations may be used to enhance drilling efficiency for reservoirs characterized by considerable contribution of natural fractures into filtration processes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xun Yan ◽  
Jing Sun ◽  
Dehua Liu

The complexity of the gas transport mechanism in microfractures and nanopores is caused by the feature of multiscale and multiphysics. Figuring out the flow mechanism is of great significance for the efficient development of shale gas. In this paper, an apparent permeability model which covers continue, slip, transition, and molecular flow and geomechanical effect was presented. Additionally, a mathematical model comprising multiscale, geomechanics, and adsorption phenomenon was proposed to characterize gas flow in the shale reservoir. The aim of this paper is to investigate some important impacts in the process of gas transportation, which includes the shale stress sensitivity, adsorption phenomenon, and reservoir porosity. The results reveal that the performance of the multistage fractured horizontal well is strongly influenced by stress sensitivity coefficient. The cumulative gas production will decrease sharply when the shale gas reservoir stress sensitivity coefficient increases. In addition, the adsorption phenomenon has an influence on shale gas seepage and sorption capacity; however, the effect of adsorption is very weak in the early gas transport period, and the impact of later will increase. Moreover, shale porosity also greatly affects the shale gas transportation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 51 (8) ◽  
pp. 921-933 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao Yang ◽  
John P. Carter ◽  
Daichao Sheng

One of the most distinct characteristics of structured soils is the nonlinearity in the normal compression lines in a plot of specific volume or voids ratio against logarithmic mean or vertical effective stresses, when compared with reconstituted soils. The change in the compressibility (or compression index) with loading is attributed to structure degradation and is expressed as a function of the plastic straining. A direct description of the compression behaviour of structured soil is then established. The validity of this approach is examined via merely incorporating the newly defined normal compression line into the modified Cam-Clay constitutive model. Comparisons against a series of experiments on different types of soils illustrate the feasibility and advantage of the adopted methodology. The dependence of shear strength on the compression behaviour considered initially in critical-state soil mechanics is reemphasized here for structured soils. Analysis also indicates that the stiffness sensitivity coefficient, Sλ, should be considered together with the traditional strength (or stress) sensitivity coefficient, St (or Sσ), to better characterize the sensitivity of structured soils.


Author(s):  
Liju Su ◽  
Ramesh K. Agarwal

Supersonic steam ejectors are widely used in many industrial applications, for example for refrigeration and desalination. The experimental evaluation of the flow field inside the ejector is relatively difficult and costly due to the occurrence of shock after the velocity of the steam reaches over the sonic level in the ejector. In this paper, numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the detailed flow field inside a supersonic steam (water vapor being the working fluid) ejector. The commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) flow solver ANSYS-Fluent and the mesh generation software ANSYS-ICEM are used to predict the steam performance during the mixing inside the ejector by employing two turbulence models, the k-ω SST and the k-ε realizable models. The computed results are validated against the experimental data. The effects of operating conditions on the efficiency of the ejector such as the primary fluid pressure and condenser pressure are studied to obtain a better understanding of the mixing process and entrainment. Velocity contours, pressure plots and shock region analyses provide a good understanding for optimization of the ejector performance, in particular how to increase the entrainment ratio.


2015 ◽  
Vol 87 (5) ◽  
pp. 477-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cezary Gumiński

AbstractInteresting general tendencies of changes of solubilities of elements and groups of compounds may be observed when the corresponding solubility data are arrayed according to the increasing atomic number of the elements. Such trends are exemplified with the data of various systems (metallic and salt-water type) evaluated in several volumes of the IUPAC-NIST Solubility Data Series. The solubilities of elements in mercury as well as in liquid alkali metals, when ordered according their atomic numbers, change roughly in a corresponding way as the temperatures and energies of melting or boiling points of the elements. However, majority of transition metals dissolved in alkali metals are subject to some side reactions with nonmetallic impurities that may drastically elevate their concentration levels. The solubilities of intermetallic compounds in mercury depend primarily on the energies of formation of these intermetallics in the binary alloys and then on the dissolution energies of the component metals in mercury. It has been observed that the experimental solubilities of metal halates in water show quite well defined periodical changes. The arrayed solubility data of rare earth metal fluorides and chlorides in water display quite smooth changes with the increasing atomic numbers if the solutes are isomorphic. Some exceptions from the smooth changes for rare earth metal bromides and iodides are explained. These general observations are useful in evaluating and predicting solubilities in experimentally unknown systems.


Geofluids ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Dengke Liu ◽  
Tao Tian ◽  
Ruixiang Liang ◽  
Fu Yang ◽  
Feng Ye

Understanding pore structure would enable us to obtain a deeper insight into the fluid mechanism in porous media. In this research, multifractal analysis by various experiments is employed to analyze the pore structure and heterogeneity characterization in the source rock in Ordos Basin, China. For this purpose, imaging apparatus, intrusion tests, and nonintrusion methods have been used. The results show that the objective shale reservoir contains complex pore network, and minor pores dominant the pore system. Both intrusion and nonintrusion methods detected pore size distributions show multifractal nature, while the former one demonstrates more heterogeneous features. The pore size distributions acquired by low temperature adsorption and nuclear magnetic resonance have relatively good consistence, indicating that similar pore network detection method may share the same mechanism, and the full-ranged pore size distributions need to be acquired by multitechniques. Chlorite has an obvious impact on the heterogeneity of pore structure in narrow pore size range, while illite and I/S mixed layer influence that in wide range. Kerogen index is the fundamental indicators of geochemical parameters. With the decrease of averaged small and middle/large pore radius, the heterogeneity of pore structures increase in narrow and wide ranges, respectively. This work employed a comprehensive methodology based on multitechniques and helps to explore how pore networks affect reservoir quality in shale reservoirs.


SPE Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 820-831 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaiyi Zhang ◽  
Bahareh Nojabaei ◽  
Kaveh Ahmadi ◽  
Russell T. Johns

Summary Shale and tight reservoir rocks have pore throats on the order of nanometers, and, subsequently, a large capillary pressure. When the permeability is ultralow (k < 200 nd), as in many shale reservoirs, diffusion might dominate over advection, so that the gas injection might no longer be controlled by the multicontact minimum miscibility pressure (MMP). For gasfloods in tight reservoirs, where k > 200 nd and capillary pressure is still large, however, advection likely dominates over diffusive transport, so that the MMP once again becomes important. This paper focuses on the latter case to demonstrate that the capillary pressure, which has an impact on the fluid pressure/volume/temperature (PVT) behavior, can also alter the MMP. The results show that the calculation of the MMP for reservoirs with nanopores is affected by the gas/oil capillary pressure, owing to alteration of the key tie lines in the displacement; however, the change in the MMP is not significant. The MMP is calculated using three methods: the method of characteristics (MOC); multiple mixing cells; and slimtube simulations. The MOC method relies on solving hyperbolic equations, so the gas/oil capillary pressure is assumed to be constant along all tie lines (saturation variations are not accounted for). Thus, the MOC method is not accurate away from the MMP but becomes accurate as the MMP is approached when one of the key tie lines first intersects a critical point (where the capillary pressure then becomes zero, making saturation variations immaterial there). Even though the capillary pressure is zero for this key tie line, its phase compositions (and, hence, the MMP) are impacted by the alteration of all other key tie lines in the composition space by the gas/oil capillary pressure. The reason for the change in the MMP is illustrated graphically for quaternary systems, in which the MMP values from the three methods agree well. The 1D simulations (typically slimtube simulations) show an agreement with these calculations as well. We also demonstrate the impact of capillary pressure on CO2-MMP for real reservoir fluids. The effect of large gas/oil capillary pressure on the characteristics of immiscible displacements, which occur at pressures well below the MMP, is discussed.


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