Division Method and Seepage Law of Seepage Channels in a Tight Reservoir

Tight oil reservoirs are characterized by a low porosity, low permeability, and strong heterogeneity. The macropores, throats, and microcracks in reservoirs are the main seepage channels, which affect the seepage law in the reservoirs. In particular, oil-water two-phase flow in different types of pores requires further study. In this study, two groups of online NMR displacement experiments were designed to study the seepage characteristics of tight oil reservoirs. It was found that the main seepage channels for oil-water two-phase flow are the microcracks, large pores, and throats in the reservoir. The large pores are mainly micron and submicron scale in size. The oil in the small pores is only transferred to the large pores through imbibition to participate in the flow, and there is no two-phase flow. Based on the influence of different pore structures on the seepage law of a tight reservoir, the pores were divided into seepage zones, and a multistage seepage model for tight reservoirs was established. Based on this model, the effects of the imbibition, stress sensitivity, threshold pressure gradient, and Jamin effect on model’s yield were studied. The results show that imbibition is no longer effective after a while. Owing to the stress sensitivity, the threshold pressure gradient, and the Jamin effect, oil production will be reduced. As the parameter value increases, the oil production decreases. The production decreases rapidly in the early stage of mining while decreases slowly in the later stage, exhibiting a trend of high yield in the early stage and stable yield in the later stage.

Investigation of Seepage Law in Broken Coal and Rock Mass under Different Loading and Unloading Cycles

In order to study the seepage law of broken coal seams affected by multiple mining operations, a cyclic loading and unloading seepage experiment was carried out. For this purpose, the seepage law of broken samples with different coal and rock ratios was analyzed. The results of our study demonstrated that the permeability of the broken samples showed a decreasing trend. After a loading and unloading cycle, the permeability was significantly reduced. The impact of the loading stage on the broken sample was higher than that of the unloading phase. When the proportion of coal particles in the mixed samples of broken coal and rock was 50%, the irreversible permeability loss rate and permeability loss rate of the samples showed the highest values. The irreversible permeability loss rate and permeability loss rate of the broken rock mass were greater than those displayed by the broken coal mass. The stress sensitivity coefficient curves of the 5 types of broken coal and rock masses presented the same changes. The stress sensitivity coefficient curve and the effective stress displayed an exponential relationship.

Analysis and Calculation of Threshold Pressure Gradient Based on Capillary Bundle

Oilfield water injection is one of the important means to supplement energy to the formation and enhance oil recovery in the process of oilfield development. The level of water injection technology determines the effect of oilfield development and also determines the length of oilfield development life. Research on seepage law of water injection development in low-permeability reservoir is the basis and important technical means of low-permeability reservoir development, and the key point of seepage law is to analyze the starting pressure gradient law. In previous studies, either static test or dynamic experimental value is used, so the error of pseudo starting pressure gradient derived from experimental value is too large, which makes people expand the starting pressure value in low-permeability reservoir in practical engineering application, and the starting pressure gradient obtained from laboratory test cannot be applied in actual reservoir. To accurately calculate the threshold pressure gradient for low-permeability reservoirs, the threshold permeability is proposed through the study of the seepage law and laboratory experiments. It is recognized that the threshold pressure gradient and the threshold permeability had been changing during the seepage. Through steady-state “flow rate-pressure difference” displacement experiment, with natural cores from a low-permeability reservoir, based on a capillary bundle model, the method for calculating the gradient is innovatively proposed. The experimental data show that the whole low-permeability seepage flow is nonlinear, divided into three stages according to the physical stages with obvious changes. Through processing and analyzing of the experimental results, first, it is showed that both threshold pressure gradient and threshold permeability increase with the rise of flow rate and the increasing amplitude is gradually decreasing. Second, the study proposes the permeability is the main controlling reason of the threshold pressure gradient, and the flow velocity is an important reason. Third, we obtain the formulas of the minimum threshold pressure gradient, the threshold pressure gradient, and the corresponding threshold permeability of different cores and the power function relationship between the threshold pressure gradient and the core permeability is obtained. And further, the one-dimensional experimental results are applied to the radial fluid flow, and the recognition that the threshold pressure gradient decreases with increasing distance and the ratio of the threshold pressure to the total displacement pressure difference are obtained. The ratio of starting pressure to total pressure drop is about 0.5, and the higher the permeability is, the lower the ratio is lower under 0.5. These findings significantly help in understanding how to effectively develop low-permeability reservoir by water injection. Through the dynamic macro experiment and microcapillary bundle principle, the experiment can be divided into several sections for analysis, which can be more accurate. The minimum start-up pressure gradient can not only guide the later development of the oilfield, but also enrich the theoretical study of non-Darcy low-velocity seepage. At the same time, the law of flow velocity and start-up pressure gradient indirectly proves the boundary layer theory of the generation mechanism of start-up pressure gradient and supports and guides the effective development of various development methods of low-permeability reservoir.

The Establishment and Evaluation Method of Artificial Microcracks in Rocks

It is necessary to carry out experiments on cores with different degrees of crack development when studying the seepage law of cracked reservoirs and evaluating cracks. The seepage experiment in the laboratory requires cores with different degrees of microcrack development; cores obtained via conventional drilling cannot meet the requirements, and the efficacies and evaluation methods of geological parameters used for artificial cracks are not perfect. In this study, cores are loaded using a triaxial gripper, and cracks are produced by changing the difference of stress; the relationship between the increased rate of permeability and the change in stress concentration is used to evaluate the degree of development of the crack in real time. The angle between the cracks and the maximum principal stress direction, calculated using the Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion, is 20–27.5°, which provides theoretical support for the process of crack creation. The experimental results show that the permeability variation curve shows two obvious turning points, which divide the whole zone into a reduction zone, a slow increase zone, and a rapid increase zone. Through the obtained experimental and evaluation results, a complete system for crack creation and evaluation is established, which can provide strong support for the study of cracked reservoirs.

Effect of Micropore Structure on Macroscopic Water Cut Changing Law in Strongly Heterogeneous Reservoirs

Reservoir rock type (RRT) classification is commonly used for the fine characterization of strongly heterogeneous reservoirs. Many research focused on proposing different RRT methods, while few studies focused on the relationship between micropore structure and macroscopic seepage law of fluid transporting through different types of formation. Considering the different diagenesis degrees of rock types in different sedimentary facies, the quadrant unit method and FZI method were applied to classify and evaluate the strongly heterogeneous reservoirs. The corresponding capillary pressure curves and relative permeability curves for different rock types could be obtained. A set of theoretical models that could describe the macroscopic seepage law are proposed, and numerical simulation case studies were carried out to explore the superimposed seepage law in reservoirs under different degrees of heterogeneity. Results show that water cut rises faster in poor-property RRT formation than in good-property RRT formation, with a lower recovery factor under the same conditions. The water cut rising rate increases firstly and then decreases with water cut and recovery degree increasing. The poorer the rock property is, the earlier and higher the peak value of water cut rising rate is. Also, based on numerical simulation case studies, the superimposed seepage law is close to that in the poor-property formation as the heterogeneity degree strengthens. The newly proposed method not only could provide a reference for rock type classification based on micropore structure but also could expound the influence of micropore structure on the change law of macroscopic water cut and elaborates the macroscopic change law after the superposition of different types of reservoirs. The conventional normalization of relative permeability curves is only applicable to relatively homogeneous reservoirs and not applicable to strongly heterogeneous reservoirs, especially when the permeability variation is higher than 0.7. The newly proposed approach is capable of analyzing the effect of micropore structure on macroscopic seepage law and improving the prediction accuracy of the production profile.

A Study on the Water/Polymer Co-Flooding Seepage Law and Reasonable Polymer Injection Volume in Offshore Oilfields

To analyze the water/polymer co-flooding seepage law in offshore oilfields, we took the Jinzhou 9-3 oilfield as an example, analyzed the dynamic characteristics of water/polymer co-flooding, and then applied streamline simulation and tracer simulation technology to obtain the water/polymer co-flooding seepage law. The interference degree of the water/polymer co-flooding was quantified, and the accuracy of the seepage law was tested. Finally, a reasonable polymer injection volume was obtained using the economic law. The results demonstrated that the water-cut of the Jinzhou 9-3 oilfield in the water/polymer co-flooding stage was high, the annual decrease of polymer store ratio increased by 2.02 times, and the swept area of polymer was limited to some extent. Mutual interference existed in the water/polymer flooding, and the oil increment of per ton polymer decreased by 36.5%. In the late stage of the water/polymer co-flooding, the utilization rate of water and polymer was low, and the plane swept area and vertical swept volume were small. If the oil price was 50 dollars/bbl, when the output-input ratio was set at 1, the reasonable polymer injection volume was 0.59 PV, and the continuous polymer injection volume was 0.29 PV in the water/polymer co-flooding stage. The study results could improve the development benefit of the Jinzhou 9-3 oilfield, and they could also provide the references for the development of the same type oilfield.