Feasibility of Gas Drive in Fang-48 Fault Block Oil Reservoir

The Fang-48 fault block oil reservoir is an extremely low permeability reservoir, and it is difficult to produce such a reservoir by waterflooding. Laboratory analysis of reservoir oil shows that the minimum miscibility pressure for CO2 drive in Fang-48 fault block oil reservoir is 29 MPa, lower than the formation fracture pressure of 34 MPa, so the displacement mechanism is miscible drive. The threshold pressure gradient for gas injection is less than that for waterflooding, and the recovery by gas drive is higher than waterflooding. Furthermore, the threshold pressure gradient for carbon dioxide injection is smaller than that for hydrocarbon gas, and the oil recovery by carbon dioxide drive is higher than that by hydrocarbon gas displacement, so carbon dioxide drive is recommended for the development of the Fang-48 fault block oil reservoir.

Activating solution gas drive as an extra oil production mechanism after carbonated water injection

Enhanced oil recovery(EOR)methods are mostly based on different phenomena taking place at the interfaces between fluid–fluid and rock–fluid phases.Over the last decade,carbonated water injection(CWI)has been considered as one of the multi-objective EOR techniques to store CO2 in the hydrocarbon bearing formations as well as improving oil recovery efficiency.During CWI process,as the reservoir pressure declines,the dissolved CO2 in the oil phase evolves and gas nucleation phenomenon would occur.As a result,it can lead to oil saturation restoration and subsequently,oil displacement due to the hysteresis effect.At this condition,CO2 would act as insitu dissolved gas into the oil phase,and play the role of an artificial solution gas drive(SGD).In this study,the effect of SGD as an extra oil recovery mechanism after secondary and tertiary CWI(SCWI-TCWI)modes has been experimentally investigated in carbonate rocks using coreflood tests.The depressurization tests resulted in more than 25%and 18%of original oil in place(OOIP)because of the SGD after SCWI and TCWI tests,respectively.From the ultimate enhanced oil recovery point of view,the efficiency of SGD was observed to be more than one-third of that of CWI itself.Furthermore,the pressure drop data revealed that the system pressure depends more on the oil production pattern than water production.

Integrated construction technology for natural gas gravity drive and underground gas storage

Based on the mechanisms of gravity displacement,miscibility,viscosity reduction,and imbibition in natural gas flooding,an integrated reservoir construction technology of oil displacement and underground gas storage(UGS)is proposed.This paper systemically describes the technical connotation,site selection principle and optimization process of operation parameters of the gas storage,and advantages of this technology.By making full use of the gravity displacement,miscibility,viscosity reduction,and imbibition features of natural gas flooding,the natural gas can be injected into oil reservoir to enhance oil recovery and build strategic gas storage at the same time,realizing the win-win situation of oil production and natural gas peak shaving.Compared with the gas reservoir storage,the integrated construction technology of gas storage has two profit models:increasing crude oil production and gas storage transfer fee,so it has better economic benefit.At the same time,in this kind of gas storage,gas is injected at high pressure in the initial stage of its construction,gas is injected and produced in small volume in the initial operation stage,and then in large volume in the middle and late operation stage.In this way,the gas storage wouldn’t have drastic changes in stress periodically,overcoming the shortcomings of large stress variations of gas reservoir storage during injection-production cycle due to large gas injection and production volume.The keys of this technology are site selection and evaluation of oil reservoir,and optimization of gravity displacement,displacement pressure,and gas storage operation parameters,etc.The pilot test shows that the technology has achieved initial success,which is a new idea for the rapid development of UGS construction in China.

Overpressure and gas charging in tight sandstone:Xujiahe Formation,northeastern Sichuan Basin

Overpressure is a key factor for oil and gas charging in tight reservoirs,but it is still a challenge to evaluate the overpressure evolution and its control on oil and gas charging.Taking Xujiahe Formation in the northeastern Sichuan Basin as an example,this paper presented a method for evaluating overpressure and its effect on natural gas charging in tight sandstone in compressional basin.The abnormally high pressure and its causes were analyzed by measured data and logging evaluation.Theoretical calculation and PVT simulation were used to investigate the amounts of overpressure resulted from hydrocarbon generation and tecto nic compression,respectively.Then the source rock-reservoir pressu re differences were calculated and the characteristics of natural gas charging during the natural gas charging periods were analyzed.It was revealed that hydrocarbon generation and tectonic compression were the main causes of the overpressure.The overpressure of both source rocks and reservoir exhibited a gradually increasing trend from Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous(J2-K1),then decreased since Later Cretaceous(K2),and some of that preserved to now.The contributions of the hydrocarbon generation and tectonic compression to overpressure were different in different periods.The residual pressure difference between the source rocks and the reservoir is the major driving force for tight sandstone gas charging.The main hydrocarbon generating area of the source rocks and the area of high driving force were major natural gas enrichment areas,and the driving force determined the natural gas charging space in the pore throat system of the reservoir.This research helps evaluate the overpressure and pressure difference between source rocks and reservoir in compressed basin,as well as investigate the effective pore throat space of tight gas charging by the driver of overpressure.

An improved oil recovery prediction method for volatile oil reservoirs

To describe the complex phase transformation in the process of depletion exploitation of volatile oil reservoir,four fluid phases are defined,and production and remaining volume of these phases are calculated based on the principle of surface volume balance,then the recovery prediction method of volatile oil reservoir considering the influence of condensate content in released solution gas and the correction method of multiple degassing experiments data are established.Taking three typical kinds of crude oil(black oil,medium-weak volatile oil,strong volatile oil)as examples,the new improved method is used to simulate constant volume depletion experiments based on the corrected data of multiple degassing experiment to verify the reliability of the modified method.By using"experimental data and traditional method","corrected data and traditional method"and"corrected data and modified method",recovery factors of these three typical kinds of oil are calculated respectively.The source of parameters and the calculation methods have little effect on the recovery of typical black oil.However,with the increase of crude oil volatility,the oil recovery will be seriously underestimated by using experimental data or traditional method.The combination of"corrected data and modified method"considers the influence of condensate in gas phase in both experimental parameters and calculation method,and has good applicability to typical black oil and volatile oil.The strong shrinkage of volatile oil makes more"liquid oil"convert to"gaseous oil",so volatile oil reservoir can reach very high oil recovery by depletion drive.

The Fabrication of Gas-driven Bionic Soft Flytrap Blade and Related Feasibility Tests

Unlike most animals,plants fail to move bodily at will.However,movements also occur in every single part of plants out of energy and nutrients needs,spanning from milliseconds to hours on a time scale.And with the growing understanding of plant movement in the academic community,bionic soft robots based on plant movement principles are increasingly studied and are considered by scientists as a source of inspiration for innovative engineering solutions.In this paper,through the study of the biological morphology,microstructure,and motion mechanism of the flytrap,we developed chambered design rules,and designed and fabricated a gas-driven bionic flytrap blade,intending to investigate its feasibility of performing complex bending deformation.The experimental result shows that the bionic flytrap blade can achieve multi-dimensional bending deformation,and complete the bending and closing action within 2 s.The performance of the bionic flytrap blade fabricated is in high agreement with the real flytrap blade in terms of bending and deformation,achieving an excellent bionic design effect.In this study,the chambered design rules of the bionic flytrap blade were proposed and developed,and the possibility of its deformation was investigated.The effects of different chamber types and different flow channel design precepts on the bending deformation of the bionic flytrap blade were revealed,together with the relationship between the response time and flow rate of the bionic flytrap blade.At last,this study provides new ideas for the study of plant blade motion mechanism in a hope to expand the application fields of bionic robots,especially hope to offer solutions for plant-type robotics.

INVESTIGATION AND APPLICATION ON GAS-DRIVE DEVELOPMENT IN ULTRA-LOW PERMEABILITY RESERVOIRS

To select a proper displacement medium with the purpose of developing ultra-low permeability reservoirs both effectively and economically, three kinds of gases, including CO2, NG and N2, are studied through physical modeling and numerical simulation under the specified reservoir conditions. The results indicate that the oil recovery through water injection is relatively low in ultra-low permeability reservoirs, where the water breaks through early and the water cut rises rapidly. Gas injection can enhance the production, of which the gas-drive efficiency depends on the injection pressure and the gas itself. CO2 is proved to be the best one after comprehensive consideration of the recovery speed, the overall recovery efficiency and the time needed for gas to break through. The pressure of CO2 injection in the field experiments is lower, compared with that of water-drive. The injectivity index of CO2 is 7.2 times as high as that of water, and the oil production of the test well group increases by about 4 t/d.