The pore structure and movable fluid characteristics of tight conglomerate reservoirs are complex, which are greatly different from conventional reservoirs. The depositional mechanism is the fundamental factor controlling the physical properties of conglomerate reservoirs. However, there is a lack of systematic research on the pore structure and movable fluid characteristics of conglomerate reservoirs with typical sedimentary facies. This paper investigates the pore structure and movable fluid characteristics of conglomerate of different sedimentary facies based on various experiments. Casting thin sections, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, high-pressure mercury injection, and nuclear magnetic resonance experiments were conducted on 32 conglomerates samples from the Mahu Sag, Junggar Basin, China. The quality classification method of tight conglomerate reservoirs is established. The results show that the conglomerate can be divided into three sedimentary facies; traction flow conglomerate (TFC) and pebbled sandstone (PSS) mainly develop intergranular pores and dissolved pores; and the pore diameter curves are mainly a double peak, single peak, and flat peak. Gravity flow conglomerate (GFC) mainly develops dissolved pores and interstitial micropores, and the pore diameter curve is mainly a single peak. PSS includes pebbled gritty sandstone (P(G)SS) and pebbled fine sandstone (P(F)SS). TFC and P(G)SS are favorable class I reservoirs, while GFC and P(F)SS are nonfavorable class II reservoirs. A new parameter, the ratio of the major axis to the minor axis of the pore outer ellipse (axial ratio), is proposed to quantitatively describe the compaction effect. The average axial ratios of the three lithofacies are 3.04, 3.98, and 8.78, respectively, indicating that the compaction is intensified and the pore structure becomes worse. By analyzing the correlation between pore structure parameters and permeability, it is found that the main controlling factors of permeability of GFC and TFC are sorting and connectivity, respectively, and the main flow radius is the most suitable parameter to describe permeability. A linear spectral decomposition method was used to establish a new quantitative calculation method of movable fluid saturation for different types of pores, and the results show that the movable fluid saturation of intergranular pores is the highest (average: 65.43%), and the movable fluid saturation of TFC and P(G)SS with more intergranular pores is the highest. Movable fluid saturation is inversely proportional to the content of I/S and the compaction rate and positively proportional to the content of quartz and feldspar and the cementation rate. The fluid mobility of water-wet samples is weaker. The research results provide theoretical support for the identification of favorable reservoirs and the cognition of a development mechanism.
Imbibition is an important mechanism to improve the recovery factor (RF) of a tight oil reservoir. Accurately evaluating the oil production capacity of tight oil reservoirs by imbibition is of great significance for the formulation of oilfield production plans and productivity prediction. However, there is currently no unified regulation on the selection of rock sample size in tight oil reservoir imbibition evaluation experiments, resulting in great differences in reservoir imbibition oil production capacity obtained from rock samples of different sizes, which brings great challenges to the efficient development of tight oil reservoirs. To clarify the law and mechanism of the rock sample size effect of tight core imbibition oil recovery, this paper takes the newly discovered tight sedimentary tuff (TST) oil reservoir as an example. First, several representative real cores were collected. Then, their wettability and pore structure characteristics were analyzed. Finally, physical simulation experiments of imbibition under different rock sample sizes were conducted. The results show that the TST has very favorable imbibition conditions, which are manifested in the following: (i) the wettability is weakly hydrophilic to hydrophilic; (ii) the mineral composition is tuffaceous minerals, calcite, and quartz, without clay minerals; (iii) micro-nanoscale pores are developed; and (iv) the pore throats are evenly distributed. In the imbibition experiments of rock samples of different sizes, the oil production characteristics of the core surface, the variation form of imbibition rate, pore production characteristics, and the influence mode of imbibition pressure on imbibition do not have the sample size effect. However, the RF of the spontaneous imbibition has an obvious sample size effect, and there is a good exponential function relationship between the imbibition RF and the specific surface area (SSA) of cores. The fundamental reason why the rock sample size effect of the TST imbibition oil recovery is relatively stable and has strong regularity is that its pore structure and wettability are relatively homogeneous and stable. The change of rock sample size does not have a great impact on the distribution of the core pore structure and wettability, resulting in no significant change in its imbibition power, resistance, and distance. Therefore, the main factor determining the imbibition RF of rock samples with different sizes is their SSA. The research results of this work can provide an important theoretical basis for understanding the law and mechanism of TST imbibition oil recovery and unifying the imbibition experimental results of small-sized rock samples.
The water injection huff and puff (WIHP) technology is regarded as one of the important means to improve the recovery factor (RF) of tight volcanic oil reservoirs (TVORs), but the influence of water injection pressure (WIP) and water injection method (WIM) on the oil recovery effect of WIHP has been rarely reported. In this paper, we first collected the real full-diameter cores from a TVOR and then simulated the distribution characteristics of fractures and matrix pores after hydraulic fracturing of the reservoir through the combination and cutting of the cores. Finally, we used the large-sized physical simulation device for tight oil WIHP that can bear high temperature and high pressure and a nuclear magnetic resonance instrument to conduct experiments of five cycles of constant pressure WIHP (CWIHP) with WIPs of 25, 32.5, and 40 MPa and step-by-step pressure rising WIHP (SWIHP) (the WIP was 25, 30, 33, 37, and 40 MPa in order) and obtained the liquid production law and mechanism of tight volcanic rock (TVR) under CWIHP and SWIHP. The result shows that under the CWIHP mode, the RF of TVR has a good power-law-positive correlation with the WIP. However, with the increase of WIHP cycles, the RF of CWIHP always decreases rapidly. In the WIHP of TVR, the injected water mainly collects oil in large pores (the pore radius is greater than 0.1 μm), and the closer the area to the outlet end of oil production and the higher the fracture density, the higher the RF. SWIHP can also effectively improve the RF of TVR, but compared with CWIHP with a WIP of 40 MPa, the amount of recovered oil decreases relatively slowly with the increase of WIHP cycles. In the first two cycles of the five cycles of WIHP, the RF of CWIHP was higher, but from the third cycle, the RF of SWIHP begins to be greater, and the more the number of cycles of WIHP, the more obvious the advantage of SWIHP. When the number of WIHP cycles exceeds 5, the oil recovery effect and the economy of SWIHP are better. This study can provide a solid theoretical basis for the efficient development of WIHP in TVORs.
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