Numerical Calculation of Equivalent Permeability Tensor for Fractured Vuggy Porous Media Based on Homogenization Theory - Volume 9 Issue 1 - Zhaoqin Huang, Jun Yao, Yajun Li, Chenchen Wang, Xinrui Lv

Stress sensitivity in reservoirs is critical during the exploitation of oil and gas fields. As a deep clastic reservoir under strong tectonic compression, the Ahe Formation in the northern tectonic zone of the Kuqa depression exhibited strong stress sensitivity effect. However, the conventional evaluation method by using permeability damage rate as a constraint restricts the mechanistic understanding of the strong stress sensitivity effect. In this study, morphology of stress sensitivity test curve, coupled with rate change of permeability and extent of irreversible damage in actual sample measurement through micro-CT in-situ scanning, is used to characterize differentially. The strong stress sensitivity effects of the studied intervals can be divided into three types: (1) rapid change in permeability–weak irreversible damage, (2) moderate change in permeability–strong irreversible damage and (3) moderate change in permeability–moderate irreversible damage. The strong stress sensitivity is caused by the micro-pores and micro-fractures, which are widely developed in the studied reservoir. The mechanisms caused by the two types of pore are different. The stress sensitivity effects in micro-fracture-rich reservoirs are characterized by rapid change in permeability and weak irreversible damage. Meanwhile, the stress sensitivity effects in micro-pore-rich reservoirs are manifested as moderate change in permeability and strong irreversible damage. The study shows that the differences in the content of micro-pores and micro-fractures and their reverse mechanisms of stress sensitivity co-create different types of stress sensitivity within the samples. Accordingly, the differences of the stress sensitivity type in macroscopic samples are caused by the competition between the microscopic differences of pore types.

Shale gas is a prospective cleaner energy resource and the exploration and development of shale gas has made breakthroughs in many countries. Structure deformation is one of the main controlling factors of shale gas accumulation and enrichment in complex tectonic areas in southern China. In order to estimate the shale gas capacity of structurally deformed shale reservoirs, it is necessary to understand the systematic evolution of organic pores in the process of structural deformation. In particular, as the main storage space of high-over-mature marine shale reservoirs, the organic matter pore system directly affects the occurrence and migration of shale gas; however, there is a lack of systematic research on the fractal characteristics and deformation mechanism of organic pores under the background of different tectonic stresses. Therefore, to clarify the above issues, modular automated processing system (MAPS) scanning, low-pressure gas adsorption, quantitative evaluation of minerals by scanning (QEMSCAN), and focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) were performed and interpreted with fractal and morphology analyses to investigate the deformation mechanisms and structure of organic pores from different tectonic units in Silurian Longmaxi shale. Results showed that in stress concentration areas such as around veins or high-angle fractures, the organic pore length-width ratio and the fractal dimension are higher, indicating that the pore is more obviously modified by stress. Under different tectonic backgrounds, the shale reservoir in Weiyuan suffered severe denudation and stronger tectonic compression during burial, which means that the organic pores are dominated by long strip pores and slit-shaped pores with high fractal dimension, while the pressure coefficient in Luzhou is high and the structural compression is weak, resulting in suborbicular pores and ink bottle pores with low fractal dimension. The porosity and permeability of different forms of organic pores are also obviously different; the connectivity of honeycomb pores with the smallest fractal dimension is the worst, that of suborbicular organic pores is medium, and that of long strip organic pores with the highest fractal dimension is the best. This study provides more mechanism discussion and case analysis for the microscopic heterogeneity of organic pores in shale reservoirs and also provides a new analysis perspective for the mechanism of shale gas productivity differences in different stress–strain environments.

The specific surface area is an important parameter to characterize pore structure and adsorption properties, however, it is difficult to calculate accurately in shale rock due to its multiscale pore structure. In this paper, the representative 3D gray images of a microfracture sample, micropore subsample and nanopore subsample in shale rock were obtained with computed tomography (CT) scanning and focused ion beam-scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) scanning. The multi-threshold segmentation algorithm with improved maximum inter-class variance method was introduced to construct the platform of multi-scale digital rock. Then, based on the fracture, micropore and nanopore digital rocks, the corresponding network models were extracted to obtain different-scale pore structures, respectively. Finally, based on the digital rock at different scales, the corresponding pore percentage, matrix percentage and specific surface area were calculated respectively. It was found that the specific surface areas of both microfractures and micropores are small, and their specific surface areas are 2~3 orders of magnitude smaller than that of nanopores, and the specific surface area of the shale formation is mainly contributed by nanopores. This paper provides an effective method to calculate the multi-scale specific surface area accurately in shale rock and has an important influence on the adsorption characteristics and swelling properties of the shale matrix.