Controlling the extent of water invasion in the reservoir and mitigating its detrimental effects on gas well production and natural gas recovery have long been a challenging task in the efficient development of strongly heterogeneous edge water gas reservoirs. To elucidate the edge water invasion mechanism of strongly heterogeneous carbonate gas reservoirs, this study investigates the pore throat characteristics and fluid mobility from both qualitative and quantitative aspects, leveraging natural core observations, cast thin sections, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) tests with centrifuge experiments. A core-scale edge water invasion simulation experiment was conducted under online NMR monitoring to examine the dynamic gas production characteristics of the three types of reservoirs during the water invasion process and to elucidate the formation mechanism and distribution pattern of water-sealed gas. Research findings indicate that carbonate reservoirs typically exhibit a diverse range of pore types, including various types of fractures and cavities. Fractures significantly enhance reservoir connectivity, thereby increasing fluid mobility, but also lead to strong non-uniform water invasion. In contrast, cavities substantially improve the storage capacity of the reservoir and can retard the advancement of the water invasion front, thereby alleviating the adverse effects of water invasion. The ultimate recovery rates of fracture-type, cavity-type, and fracture-cavity cores in the water invasion simulation experiment were 29.81%, 64.87%, and 53.03%, respectively. Premature water breakthroughs in the reservoir can result in a large number of gases in matrix pores and even cavities being sealed by formation water, rendering them unrecoverable, which seriously impacts the gas recovery rate of the reservoir.
