Deep geothermal resources are environmentally friendly and represent a highly competitive form of clean energy. However, low rock-breaking energy combined with high rock strength results in a low rate of penetration (ROP), which significantly restricts the efficient utilization of geothermal resources. Previous studies have shown that rock failure is primarily caused by shear stress. Therefore, this paper aims to enhance the shear stress level by increasing the impact load and releasing the confining pressure, thereby improving the ROP. Specifically, the rock-breaking efficiency under the coupling of impact load and confining pressure releasing is analyzed to reveal the influence of confining pressure releasing on shear stress. Furthermore, a rock-breaking model is established, and an impact load generator is employed to validate the proposed model, enabling the evaluation of rock-breaking efficiency under the coupled action of impact load and confining pressure releasing. The results indicate that the ratio of shear stress to $I_1$ dominates the rock-breaking process. When this ratio is low, the rock tends to remain in a compressed state, the hydrostatic pressure effect is enhanced, the shear stress effect is relatively weakened, and the rock-breaking efficiency decreases. The coupling of impact load with confining pressure releasing can achieve effective rock breaking under relatively low weight-on-bit conditions in deep wells, thereby providing theoretical support for improving rock-breaking efficiency in hot dry rock geothermal development.

Considering the damage caused by conventional fracturing fluid in low-permeability reservoirs, a novel fracturing fluid (FNG) combining hydroxypropyl guar (HPG) and functionally modified nano-silica (FMNS) was prepared. The properties of heat/shear resistance, rheological property, proppant transportation, and formation damage were evaluated with systematic experiments. The results showed that the viscosities of FNG before and after the heat/resistance were 1323 mPa·s and 463 mPa·s, respectively, while that of conventional HPG gel was 350 mPa·s. FNG is a pseudoplastic strong gel with a yield stress of 12.9 Pa, a flow behavior index of 0.54, an elastic modulus of 16.2 Pa, and a viscous modulus of 6.2 Pa. As the proportions of proppant mass in further sections transported with FNG were higher than those transported with HPG gel, FNG could transport the proppant better than HPG gel at high temperatures. Because of the amphiphilic characteristics of FMNS, the surface/interface properties were improved by the FNG filtrate, resulting in a lower oil permeability loss rate of 10 percentage points in the matrix than with the filtrated HPG gel. Due to the considerable residual gel in broken HPG gel, the retained conductivity damaged with broken FNG was 9.5 percentage points higher than that damaged with broken HPG gel. FNG shows good potential for reducing formation damage during fracturing in low-permeability reservoirs in China.

Summary: Water huff ‘n’ puff is an effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technology for tight oil reservoirs. However, the oil production of horizontal wells declines seriously after several huff ‘n’ puff cycles, and a large amount of oil is still trapped in the reservoir due to the heterogeneity of fracturing sections. The temporary plugging agent had been used for plugging high-permeability areas and thus diverting the following fluid into small permeability areas. It would improve the sweep efficiency of flooding fluid, enhancing oil recovery. However, the use of the oil-soluble particulate temporary plugging agent in the water huff ‘n’ puff application is barely reported. Therefore, the feasibility and influencing factors of oil-soluble particulate temporary plugging agent-assisted water huff ‘n’ puff (TAWHP) in enhancing oil recovery was investigated in this study. First, based on the evaluation of the performance of the oil-soluble particulate temporary plugging agent, the oil recovery of fractured core samples with different apertures for water huff ‘n’ puff and TAWHP was compared via the parallel-core experiment to verify the feasibility of TAWHP in enhancing oil recovery. The temporary plugging agent had good oil solubility, a low residual rate in the formation, and little damage to the formation. The oil recovery yielded by TAWHP was 5.17% higher than the traditional water huff ‘n’ puff process. More oil (i.e., about 1.71%) could be expelled from the fractured core samples with a small aperture. It indicated that the EOR performance yielded by water huff ‘n’ puff after several cycles could be enhanced by adding the oil-soluble particulate temporary plugging agent. After that, a mathematical model of TAWHP was established to investigate the effect of TAWHP parameters on EOR performance. The simulation results showed that the cumulative oil production increased with the increase in injection time of the temporary plugging agent solution, but the trend would level-off after 10 minutes. Moreover, as the diversion index increased, the effect of the injection rate on cumulative oil production gradually enhanced while the effect of the soaking time gradually weakened. Furthermore, the difference in cumulative oil production at different diversion indexes gradually increased as the huff ‘n’ puff cycle increased. This work could provide theoretical guidance for water huff ‘n’ puff enhancing oil recovery after several cycles.

The high dosage of surfactant terribly restrains the extensive application of viscoelastic surfactant (VES) fracturing fluid. In this study, a novel gemini surfactant (GLO) with long hydrophobic tails and double bonds was prepared and a VES fracturing fluid with a low concentration of GLO was developed. Because of the long tails bending near the double bonds, there is a significant improvement of the surfactant aggregate architecture, which realized the favorable viscosity of the VES fluid at a more economical concentration than the conventional VES fracturing fluids. Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry (¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR), and high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) were employed to study the formation of the product and the structure of GLO. The designed GLO was produced according to the results of the structure characterizations. The formula of the VES fracturing fluid was optimized to be 2.0 wt % GLO + 0.4 wt % sodium salicylate (NaSal) + 1.0 wt % KCl based on the measurements of the viscosity. The viscosity of the VES fluid decreased from 405.5 to 98.7 mPa·s as the temperature increased from 18 to 80 °C and reached equilibrium at about 70.2 mPa·s. The VES fluid showed a typical elastic pseudoplastic fluid with a yield stress of 0.5 Pa in the rheological tests. It realized a proppant setting velocity as low as 0.08 g/min in the dynamic proppant transport test carried by GLO-based VES fracturing fluid. Compared to the formation water, the filtrate of the VES fracturing fluid decreased the water contact angle (CA) from 56.2 to 45.4° and decreased the water/oil interfacial tension (IFT) from 19.5 to 1.6 mN/m. Finally, the VES fracturing fluid induced a low permeability loss rate of 10.4% and a low conductivity loss rate of 5.4% for the oil phase in the experiments of formation damage evaluation.

In the waterflooding development of fractured ultra-low permeability reservoirs, the heterogeneity is becoming increasingly serious. The development of large fracture channels leads to serious water channelling and low recovery, and the effect of conventional profile control is not ideal. This paper proposed gel foam composite profile control and flooding technology to solve the above problems. Herein, the new intelligent gel and foaming agent systems were optimized through laboratory experiments, and their performance was evaluated. The new intelligent gel system has the characteristics of low viscosity, easy preparation, good injection, slow cross-linking, high strength, and long-term effectiveness. The injection parameters were optimized, and the indoor injection scheme was formulated, that is, the optimal injection volumes of gel and foam slugs were 0.3 and 0.6 PV, respectively. The injection sequence of composite slugs was to inject gel slugs first, then foam slugs. The injection mode of air foam slugs was multiple rounds of small slug injection. The final recovery rate in the indoor dual tube oil displacement experiment reached 35.01%, increasing by 23.69%. Furthermore, an oil output increase of 899 t and an average water cut decrease of 5% were acquired in the oil field test. It shows that the injection scheme can effectively improve oil recovery. The gel foam compound profile control and flooding technology herein has good adaptability in similar reservoirs and has good promotion prospects.

High-angle fractures are widely developed in ultra-low permeability reservoirs in the Ordos Basin, and their propagation has a significant influence on waterflooding performance. However, few studies have focused on the identification of high-angle fractures, let alone the impact of their propagation on waterflooding performance. Therefore, a waterflooding model considering dynamic fracture propagation was developed to evaluate the impact of fracture propagation on waterflooding performance in this study. Firstly, based on the logging response characteristics of high-angle fracture intervals, the high-angle fracture identification model was established by the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, and a comprehensive index was proposed to identify high-angle fracture intervals. A threshold of approximately 70 effectively distinguishes high-angle fracture intervals from non-high-angle fracture intervals. After that, the waterflooding model considering dynamic fracture propagation was established to investigate the effect of its parameters on waterflooding performance. A smaller initial leak-off coefficient and a faster decline rate reduce fluid loss, promote fracture propagation, and ultimately improve oil recovery. Higher injection rates promote dynamic fracture propagation, accelerate water cut rise, mitigate production decline, and enhance cumulative oil production, while improving the waterflooding response of wells along the fracture direction. Optimal well group performance is achieved at a fracture orientation of 45°, beyond which production declines. Increasing well spacing reduces the water cut rise rate and the production decline rate, thereby improving cumulative oil production. However, it leads to a faster production decline in the early development stage. This work could provide theoretical guidance for waterflooding in ultra-low permeability reservoirs.