Discovery and inspiration of large-and medium-sized glutenite-rich oil and gas fields in the eastern South China Sea:An example from Paleogene Enping Formation in Huizhou 26 subsag,Pearl River Mouth Basin

Based on the practice of oil and gas exploration in the Huizhou Sag of the Pearl River Mouth Basin,the geochemical indexes of source rocks were measured,the reservoir development morphology was restored,the rocks and minerals were characterized microscopically,the measured trap sealing indexes were compared,the biomarker compounds of crude oil were extracted,the genesis of condensate gas was identified,and the reservoir-forming conditions were examined.On this basis,the Paleogene Enping Formation in the Huizhou 26 subsag was systematically analyzed for the potential of oil and gas resources,the development characteristics of large-scale high-quality conglomerate reservoirs,the trapping effectiveness of faults,the hydrocarbon migration and accumulation model,and the formation conditions and exploration targets of large-and medium-sized glutenite-rich oil and gas fields.The research results were obtained in four aspects.First,the Paleogene Wenchang Formation in the Huizhou 26 subsag develops extensive and thick high-quality source rocks of semi-deep to deep lacustrine subfacies,which have typical hydrocarbon expulsion characteristics of"great oil generation in the early stage and huge gas expulsion in the late stage",providing a sufficient material basis for hydrocarbon accumulation in the Enping Formation.Second,under the joint control of the steep slope zone and transition zone of the fault within the sag,the large-scale near-source glutenite reservoirs are highly heterogeneous,with the development scale dominated hierarchically by three factors(favorable facies zone,particle component,and microfracture).The(subaqueous)distributary channels near the fault system,with equal grains,a low mud content(<5%),and a high content of feldspar composition,are conducive to the development of sweet spot reservoirs.Third,the strike-slip pressurization trap covered by stable lake flooding mudstone is a necessary condition for oil and gas preservation,and the NE and nearly EW faults obliquely to the principal stress have the best control on traps.Fourth,the spatiotemporal configuration of high-quality source rocks,fault transport/sealing,and glutenite reservoirs controls the degree of hydrocarbon enrichment.From top to bottom,three hydrocarbon accumulation units,i.e.low-fill zone,transition zone,and high-fill zone,are recognized.The main area of the channel in the nearly pressurized source-connecting fault zone is favorable for large-scale hydrocarbon enrichment.The research results suggest a new direction for the exploration of large-scale glutenite-rich reservoirs in the Enping Formation of the Pearl River Mouth Basin,and present a major breakthrough in oil and gas exploration.

Controlling factors on the charging process of oil and gas in the eastern main sub-sag of the Baiyun Sag,Zhujiang River(Pearl River)Mouth Basin

The eastern main sub-sag(E-MSS)of the Baiyun Sag was the main zone for gas exploration in the deep-water area of the Zhujiang River(Pearl River)Mouth Basin at its early exploration stage,but the main goal of searching gas in this area was broken through by the successful exploration of the W3-2 and H34B volatile oil reservoirs,which provides a new insight for exploration of the Paleogene oil reservoirs in the E-MSS.Nevertheless,it is not clear on the distribution of“gas accumulated in the upper layer,oil accumulated in the lower layer”(Gas_(upper)-Oil_(lower))under the high heat flow,different source-rock beds,multi-stages of oil and gas charge,and multi-fluid phases,and not yet a definite understanding of the genetic relationship and formation mechanism among volatile oil,light oil and condensate gas reservoirs,and the migration and sequential charge model of oil and gas.These puzzles directly lead to the lack of a clear direction for oil exploration and drilling zone in this area.In this work,the PVT fluid phase,the origin of crude oil and condensate,the secondary alteration of oil and gas reservoirs,the evolution sequence of oil and gas formation,the phase state of oil and gas migration,and the configuration of fault activity were analyzed,which established the migration and accumulation model of Gas_(upper)-Oil_(lower)cocontrolled by source and heat,and fractionation controlled by facies in the E-MSS.Meanwhile,the fractionation evolution model among common black reservoirs,volatile reservoirs,condensate reservoirs and gas reservoirs is discussed,which proposed that the distribution pattern of Gas_(upper)-Oil_(lower)in the E-MSS is controlled by the generation attribute of oil and gas from source rocks,the difference of thermal evolution,and the fractionation controlled by phases after mixing the oil and gas.Overall,we suggest that residual oil reservoirs should be found in the lower strata of the discovered gas reservoirs in the oil-source fault and diapir-developed areas,while volatile oil reservoirs should be found in the deeper strata near the sag with no oil-source fault area.

Spray and mixing characteristics of liquid jet in a tubular gas-liquid atomization mixer

For the design and optimization of a tubular gas-liquid atomization mixer,the atomization and mixing characteristics of liquid jet breakup in the limited tube space is a key problem.In this study,the primary breakup process of liquid jet columnwas analyzed by high-speed camera,then the droplet size and velocity distribution of atomized droplets were measured by Phase-Doppler anemometry(PDA).The hydrodynamic characteristics of gas flow in tubular gas-liquid atomization mixer were analyzed by computational fluid dynamics(CFD)numerical simulation.The results indicate that the liquid flow rate has little effect on the atomization droplet size and atomization pressure drop,and the gas flowrate is themain influence parameter.Under all experimental gas flowconditions,the liquid jet column undergoes a primary breakup process,forming larger liquid blocks and droplets.When the gas flow rate(Qg)is less than 127 m^(3)·h^(−1),the secondary breakup of large liquid blocks and droplets does not occur in venturi throat region.The Sauter mean diameter(SMD)of droplets measured at the outlet is more than 140μm,and the distribution is uneven.When Qg>127 m^(3)·h^(−1),the large liquid blocks and droplets have secondary breakup process at the throat region.The SMD of droplets measured at the outlet is less than 140μm,and the distribution is uniform.When 127<Qg<162m^(3)·h^(−1),the secondary breakup mode of droplets is bag breakup or pouch breakup.When 181<Qg<216m^(3)·h^(−1),the secondary breakup mode of droplets is shear breakup or catastrophic breakup.In order to ensure efficient atomization and mixing,the throat gas velocity of the tubular atomization mixer should be designed to be about 51 m·s^(−1) under the lowest operating flow rate.The pressure drop of the tubular atomization mixer increases linearly with the square of gas velocity,and the resistance coefficient is about 2.55 in single-phase flow condition and 2.73 in gas-liquid atomization condition.

A Numerical Study on Hydraulic Fracturing Problems via the Proper Generalized Decomposition Method

The hydraulic fracturing is a nonlinear,fluid-solid coupling and transient problem,in most cases it is always time-consuming to simulate this process numerically.In recent years,although many numerical methods were proposed to settle this problem,most of them still require a large amount of computer resources.Thus it is a high demand to develop more efficient numerical approaches to achieve the real-time monitoring of the fracture geometry during the hydraulic fracturing treatment.In this study,a reduced order modeling technique namely Proper Generalized Decomposition(PGD),is applied to accelerate the simulations of the transient,non-linear coupled system of hydraulic fracturing problem,to match this extremely tight response time constraint.The separability of the solution in space and time dimensions is studied for a simplified model problem.The solid and fluid equations are coupled explicitly by inverting the solid discrete problem,and a simple iterative procedure to handle the non-linear characteristic of the hydraulic fracturing problem is proposed in this work.Numeral validation illustrates that the results of PGD match well with these of standard finite element method in terms o f fracture opening and fluid pressure in the hydro-fracture.Moreover,after the off-line calculations,the numerical results can be obtained in real time.

LES Investigation of Drag-Reducing Mechanism of Turbulent Channel Flow with Surfactant Additives

In this work,the drag-reducing mechanism of high-Reynoldsnumber turbulent channel flow with surfactant additives is investigated by using large eddy simulation(LES)method.An N-parallel finitely extensible nonlinear elastic model with Peterlin’s approximation(FENE-P)is used to describe the rheological behaviors of non-Newtonian fluid with surfactant.To close the filtered LES equations,a hybrid subgrid scale(SGS)model coupling the spatial filter and temporal filter is applied to compute the subgrid stress and other subfilter terms.The finite difference method and projection algorithm are adopted to solve the LES governing equations.To validate the correctness of our LES method and in-house code,the particle image velocimetry(PIV)experiment is carried out and representative measured results are compared with LES results in detail.Then the flow characteristics and drag-reducing mechanism of turbulent channel flow with surfactant are investigated from the perspective of drag reduction rate,mean velocity,fluctuation of deformation rate,shear stress,transport and dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy,and turbulent coherent structures.This research can shed a light on the application of turbulent drag reduction technique in district heating,petroleum transport,etc.

A Numerical Study on the Propagation Mechanisms of Hydraulic Fractures in Fracture-Cavity Carbonate Reservoirs

Field data suggests that carbonate reservoirs contain abundant natural fractures and cavities.The propagation mechanisms of hydraulic fractures in fracture-cavity reservoirs are different from conventional reservoirs on account of the stress concentration surrounding cavities.In this paper,we develop a fully coupled numerical model using the extended finite element method(XFEM)to investigate the behaviors and propagation mechanisms of hydraulic fractures in fracture-cavity reservoirs.Simulation results show that a higher lateral stress coefficient can enhance the influence of the natural cavity,causing a more curved fracture path.However,lower confining stress or smaller in-situ stress difference can reduce this influence,and thus contributes to the penetration of the hydraulic fracture towards the cavity.Higher fluid viscosity and high fluid pumping rate are both able to attenuate the effect of the cavity.The frictional natural fracture connected to the cavity can significantly change the stress distribution around the cavity,thus dramatically deviates the hydraulic fracture from its original propagation direction.It is also found that the natural cavity existing between two adjacent fracturing stages will significantly influence the stress distribution between fractures and is more likely to result in irregular propagation paths compared to the case without a cavity.

Study on a Dual Embedded Discrete Fracture Model for Fluid Flow in Fractured Porous Media

Simulation of fluid flow in the fractured porous media is very important and challenging.Researchers have developed some models for fractured porous media.With the development of related research in recent years,the prospect of embedded discrete fracture model(EDFM)is more and more bright.However,since the size of the fractures in the actual reservoir varies greatly,a very fine grid should be used which leads to a huge burden to the computing resources.To address this challenge,in the present paper,an upscaling based model is proposed.In this model,the flow in large-scale fractures is directly described by the EDFM while that in the small-scale fractures is upscaled through local simulation by EDFM.The EDFM is used to simulate the large-and small-scale fractures independently two times,so the new model is called dual embedded discrete fracture model(D-EDFM).In this paper,the detailed implementation process of D-EDFM is introduced and,through test cases,it is found the proposed model is a feasible method to simulate the flow in fractured porous media.

Vortex-induced vibration response of a circular cylinder surrounded with small rods

In this paper,cross-flow vortex-induced vibration(VIV)responses of a circular cylinder surrounded with different control rods have been investigated in a wind tunnel.The number of rods n is set equal to 3 and 6,and the ratios of diameters d/D(where d is the diameter of small rods,D is the cylinder diameter)are assumed to 0.10,0.16 and 0.20.The spacing ratios of s(s=G/D,where G is the gap distance between the main cylinder surface and the control rod surface)are selected as 0.2,0.4 and 0.6 respectively.The Reynolds number based on the main cylinder is in the region of Re=4000–42000.Results show that the VIV can be significant suppressed if placing the control rods in appropriate arrangement.And the gap between the rod and the main cylinder plays a more important role in the VIV amplitude response.When the spacing ratio between the rod and main cylinder is 0.2,VIV can be best suppressed by 96.7%.However,rods do not always suppress VIV and the responses can be more severe in other spacing ratios(s=0.4,0.6).And typical vortex shedding frequency lock-in phenomenon can be observed.When the spacing ratio is 0.2,other than the natural frequency component,St frequency is also presented in the frequency spectrum of wake velocity.