Mechanistic investigation of gas injection treatment in a continental shale gas condensate reservoir

Low thermal evolution degree of gas and connected fracture network are key features in the continental shale gas reservoirs.When the pressure decreases lower than the dew point pressure,gas condensate diminishes the mobility of subsurface fluid forms in the near well region,which further reduces the productivity and final recovery factor in addition to the low connected fracture network.This work is motivated to investigate the application of gas injection,proven to be a feasible technique in conventional/marine-shale gas condensate reservoirs,in continental shale gas condensate reservoirs.We apply a compositional model to investigate the mechanism of gas injection treatment taking a continental shale gas condensate reservoir in the Fuxing area,Sichuan Basin,China as an example.The results demonstrate that for the removal of gas condensate during CO_(2)injection,re-vaporization plays the main mechanism through two processes including pressurization and development of miscibility,while the former is overwhelming.Considering the variation trend of the total volume of gas condensate,we divide the whole injection process into four and six stages in the single fracture model and fracture network model,respectively,and reason the trend with respect to phase behavior and flow pattern.A sensitive study on the injected gas type indicates that the sorting of the gas injection performance to remove gas condensate produced gas followed by CH4,and followed by CO_(2).Finally,we investigate the performance of cyclic produced-gas injection and optimize the injection scheme.This work provides technical and theoretical support for the development of continental shale gas reservoirs.