scholarly journals Coupled flow-geomechanics studies on the role of hydrofracturing and secondary fracturing in CO2-enhanced coalbed methane

2021 ◽  
pp. 014459872098527
Author(s):  
Chaobin Guo ◽  
Quanlin Feng ◽  
Tianran Ma ◽  
Siqi Wang ◽  
Rui Zhou ◽  
...  

CO2-enhanced coalbed methane (CO2-ECBM) can improve coalbed methane production efficiency and simultaneously alleviate greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, we integrated TOUGH2 and FLAC3D numerical simulation software to conduct hydro-mechanical coupling analysis for effects of hydrofracturing and secondary fracturing in CO2-ECBM. The simulation results show that the hydrofracturing and secondary fracturing treatments significantly increase the coal seam interconnectivity, enhancing overall injection and production. The reduction of the pore pressure near injection wells can effectively reduce the damage of gas injection well. Moreover, secondary fracturing can even increase cumulative gas production up to 32.5%. In addition to rising fracture density, increasing the fracture length is also considered an efficacious procedure for enhancing permeability in the secondary fracturing process.

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1629-1644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guozhong Hu ◽  
Chao Sun ◽  
Mingfei Sun ◽  
Wei Qin ◽  
Jianshe Linghu

Coal and gas outbursts mostly occur during mining at geostructural belts. Pre-drainage coalbed methane using hydraulic fracturing is one of the methods to prevent outbursts. However, the coal in geostructural belts is to be soft and crushed with special mechanical properties and pore structure. To explore the feasibility of hydraulic fracturing in geostructural belts, a field investigation on enhanced coalbed methane using hydraulic fracturing with vertical well was conducted at the Yangquan Coalfield, China. This case puts forward a method for the location selection of vertical well in geostructural belts. In addition, a triple-control technology for hydraulic fracturing, which is characterized by pressure control, flow control and sand ratio control of fracturing fluid, is presented. The results show that the average gas production and maximum gas drainage capacity of the test well were 5.67 and 12.88 times than those of the regular well, respectively, achieving good drainage effects.


2013 ◽  
Vol 868 ◽  
pp. 700-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Wang ◽  
Fan Dong ◽  
Qing Zhong Zhu ◽  
Yan Hui Yang ◽  
Tian Peng Yao

Desorption of Coalbed Methane is one of the key controls to CBM recovery ratio and production capacity. This paper discusses the impact of engineered measures on CBM overall desorption and production capacity with CBM model of Eclipse numerical simulation software. The simulation results show that: with the extension of hydraulic fracture half-length, overall desorption of coal reservoir increased and CBM production capacity improved, daily gas production, maximum gas production and stable yield time increased correspondingly; in different deployment of spacing and well network, the smaller spacing is beneficial to the overall desorption of coal reservoir, but its production can not keep stability because of the serious decline in the late stage of development, while the larger spacing shows in the opposite way.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hou Yudong ◽  
Huang Saipeng ◽  
Han Jian ◽  
Liu Xingbin ◽  
Han Lianfu ◽  
...  

The injection of CO2 to displace CH4 in coal seams is an effective method to exploit coalbed methane (CBM), for which the CO2 injection temperature and pressure are important influential factors. We performed simulations, using COMSOL Multiphysics to determine the effect of CO2 injection temperature and pressure on CO2-enhanced coalbed methane (CO2-ECBM) recovery, according to adsorption/desorption, seepage, and diffusion of binary gas (CO2 and CH4) in the coal seam, and deriver a thermal–hydraulic–mechanical coupling equation of CO2-ECBM. The simulation results show that, as CO2 injection pressure in CO2-ECBM increases, the molar concentration and displacement time of CH4 in the coal seam significantly decrease. With increasing injection temperature, the binary gas adsorption capacity in the coal seam decreases, and CO2 reserves and CH4 production decrease. High temperatures are therefore not conducive for CH4 production.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 626 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaojun Fan ◽  
Mingkun Luo ◽  
Sheng Li ◽  
Haohao Zhang ◽  
Zhenhua Yang ◽  
...  

The reservoir permeability dominates the transport of gas and water in coal seam. However, coal seams rich in gas usually contain various pores and fractures blocked by a large amount of minerals, which leads to an ultra-low permeability and gas extraction rate, and thus an increase of drilling workload. We first propose a thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical coupled model (THMC) for the acid fracturing enhanced coalbed methane recovery (AF-ECBM). Then, this model is applied to simulate the variation of key parameters during AF-ECBM using a 2D geometry. The effect of different extraction schedules are comparatively analyzed to give an insight into these complex coupling responses in coal seam. Result confirms that the AF-ECBM is an effective way to increase the reservoir permeability and improve the gas production using the proposed model. The range of permeability increment zone increases most dramatically in the way of acid fracturing, followed by none-acid fracturing and acidizing over time. The gas production in order is: acid fracturing (AF-ECBM) > fracturing (F-ECBM) > acidification (A-ECBM)> direct extraction (D-CBM).


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinlu Yan ◽  
Songhang Zhang ◽  
Shuheng Tang ◽  
Zhongcheng Li ◽  
Yongxiang Yi ◽  
...  

Due to the unique adsorption and desorption characteristics of coal, coal reservoir permeability changes dynamically during coalbed methane (CBM) development. Coal reservoirs can be classified using a permeability dynamic characterization in different production stages. In the single-phase water flow stage, four demarcating pressures are defined based on the damage from the effective stress on reservoir permeability. Coal reservoirs are classified into vulnerable, alleviative, and invulnerable reservoirs. In the gas desorption stage, two demarcating pressures are used to quantitatively characterize the recovery properties of permeability based on the recovery effect of the matrix shrinkage on permeability, namely the rebound pressure (the pressure corresponding to the lowest permeability) and recovery pressure (the pressure when permeability returns to initial permeability). Coal reservoirs are further classified into recoverable and unrecoverable reservoirs. The physical properties and influencing factors of these demarcating pressures are analyzed. Twenty-six wells from the Shizhuangnan Block in the southern Qinshui Basin of China were examined as a case study, showing that there is a significant correspondence between coal reservoir types and CBM well gas production. This study is helpful for identifying geological conditions of coal reservoirs as well as the productivity potential of CBM wells.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Chao Cui ◽  
Suoliang Chang ◽  
Yanbin Yao ◽  
Lutong Cao

Coal macrolithotypes control the reservoir heterogeneity, which plays a significant role in the exploration and development of coalbed methane. Traditional methods for coal macrolithotype evaluation often rely on core observation, but these techniques are non-economical and insufficient. The geophysical logging data are easily available for coalbed methane exploration; thus, it is necessary to find a relationship between core observation results and wireline logging data, and then to provide a new method to quantify coal macrolithotypes of a whole coal seam. In this study, we propose a L-Index model by combing the multiple geophysical logging data with principal component analysis, and we use the L-Index model to quantitatively evaluate the vertical and regional distributions of the macrolithotypes of No. 3 coal seam in Zhengzhuang field, southern Qinshui basin. Moreover, we also proposed a S-Index model to quantitatively evaluate the general brightness of a whole coal seam: the increase of the S-Index from 1 to 3.7, indicates decreasing brightness, i.e., from bright coal to dull coal. Finally, we discussed the relationship between S-Index and the hydro-fracturing effect. It was found that the coal seam with low S-Index values can easily form long extending fractures during hydraulic fracturing. Therefore, the lower S-Index values indicate much more favorable gas production potential in the Zhengzhuang field. This study provides a new methodology to evaluate coal macrolithotypes by using geophysical logging data.


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