Spontaneous imbibition (SI) is regarded as an effective method to improve the oil recovery in a tight sandstone reservoir, which leads to a significant change in fracturing design and flowback treatment. However, a longtime shut-in period would aggravate the retention of fracturing fluid, which is in contradiction with high production in the field. It is imperative to understand how SI works during shut-in time, so as to maximize the effect of imbibition in oil recovery enhancement. In this study, a series of experiments were conducted to simulate the status of residual oil saturation so that the inner mechanism of imbibition on oil recovery can be investigated. Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) was used to provide direct observation of phase changes in different pore sizes. The experimental results show a positive effect of imbibition on residual oil reduction. This phenomenon further elucidates the observations made during the well shut-in, soaking period, and low flowback efficiency. This study aims to understand the mechanism of SI behavior and help to improve the accuracy of production prediction.

After hydraulic fracturing, the geometric characteristics of rock morphology is a crucial means for evaluating the effectiveness of fracture stimulation in enhancing production. In order to quantitatively analyze the surface undulations of marine and continental shale morphology further following hydraulic fracturing, a method for calculating the three-dimensional fractal dimension of fracture surfaces based on optical scanning technology is proposed. This method involves the acquisition of point cloud data using a 3D surface scanner. The obtained data are subsequently subjected to smoothing processes, followed by the reconstruction of the three-dimensional representation of the fractures. The box-counting dimension algorithm is employed to calculate the fractal characteristics of post-fracture morphology. The research results indicate that marine shale, due to its higher proportion of brittle minerals such as quartz and calcite, predominantly exhibits vertically oriented longitudinal fractures, perpendicular to the minimum horizontal stress. The average initiation pressure is 8% higher compared to continental shale, with an average fractal dimension of 2.24397. In contrast, continental shale, characterized by its high clay content and the development of natural fractures and bedding planes, is more prone to capturing hydraulic fracture features, resulting in predominantly single transverse shear fractures. The average fractal dimension is 2.087065, which is 7% lower than that of marine shale. These research findings offer a certain degree of guidance for the optimization of fracturing process parameters for different types of reservoirs.

As a promising technology to improve shale gas (SG) recovery and CO₂ storage capacity, the multi-well pads (MWPs) scheme has gained more and more attention. The semi-analytical pressure-buildup method has been used to estimate CO₂ storage capacity. It focuses on single multi-fractured horizontal wells (SMFHWs) and does not consider multi-well pressure interference (MWPI) induced by the MWPs scheme. This severely limits the application of this method as incidences of multi-well pressure interference have been widely reported. This paper proposed a new methodology to optimize the injection strategy of the MWPs scheme and maximize CO₂ storage capacity. The new method implements numerical discretization, the superposition theory, Gauss elimination, and the Stehfest numerical algorithm to obtain pressure-buildup solutions for the MWPs scheme. The solution by the new method was validated with numerical simulation and pressure-buildup curves were generated to identify MWPI. Using the new method, we observed that the fracture number and fracture half-length have a positive influence on CO₂ storage capacity. Both can be approximately related to the CO₂ storage capacity by a linear correlation. For a given injection pressure, there is an optimal fracture number; the bigger the limited injection pressure, the smaller the optimal fracture number. Stress sensitivity has positive influences on CO₂ storage capacity, thus extending the injection period would improve CO₂ storage capacity. This work gains some insights into the CO₂ storage capacity of the MWPs scheme in depleted SG reservoirs, and provides considerable guidance on injection strategies to maximize CO₂ storage capacity in depleted SG reservoirs.