Oil & Gas Geology ›› 2023, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (1): 164-177.doi: 10.11743/ogg20230113

• Petroleum Geology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Exploring the mineral dissolution-precipitation processes in fracture-fluid-rock systems based on simulation experiments

Qian DING1,2,3(), Jingbin WANG1,2,3, Leilei YANG4,5, Dongya ZHU1,2,3, Wenbin JIANG6,7, Zhiliang HE1,3,8()   

  1. 1.State Key Laboratory of Shale Oil and Gas Accumulation Mechanism and the Effective Development,Beijing 102206,China
    2.Petroleum Exploration and Production Research Institute,SINOPEC,Beijing 102206,China
    3.Key Laboratory of Geology and Resource in Deep Stratum,SINOPEC,Beijing 102206,China
    4.State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resource and Prospecting,Beijing 102249,China
    5.China University of Petroleum (Beijing),Beijing 102249,China
    6.Institute of Mechanics,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100190,China
    7.School of Engineering Science,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100190,China
    8.China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation,Beijing 100728,China
  • Received:2022-05-10 Revised:2022-11-15 Online:2023-02-01 Published:2023-01-13
  • Contact: Zhiliang HE E-mail:dingqian.syky@sinopec.com;hezhiliang@sinopec.com

Abstract:

Water-rock interactions in fracture systems and their significance to reservoir formation have always been a hot topic of interest for scholars around the world. Fluid may flow and transport along the fractures, dissolve surrounding rocks, precipitate new minerals, and change the morphology of storage space, all playing critical roles in the formation and distribution of carbonate reservoirs as well as hydrocarbon migration and accumulation. It is therefore of great theoretical and practical significance to identify the genetic mechanism of deep and ultra-deep fractured carbonate reservoirs. In this study, we carried out high-temperature and high-pressure dissolution simulation experiments on samples from the Ordovician Yijianfang Formation in the Shunbei area of Tarim Basin and performed numerical simulation with tools such as TOUGHREACT to identify the interaction mechanism between brine with dissolved CO2 and carbonate rocks, to investigate the influence of temperature, pressure, fluid property and physical heterogeneity, and to calculate the Ca2+ diffusion properties and mineral dissolution/precipitation trends. The results show that the overall reaction is dominated by calcite dissolution with an increase in fracture width, number and volume, as well as sample permeability and porosity, indicating improvement of reservoir quality. This study clarifies that the physical heterogeneity and fluid hydraulic properties promote the main fractures as the main flow channels. The flow and reaction processes promote each other and together determine that the main fractures will not only be the dominant channels for fluid flow and the main place where water-rock reactions occur, but will also be the dominant reservoir space for oil and gas.

Key words: flow path, dissolution-precipitation, physical heterogeneity, fractured limestone, carbonate reservoir, Tarim Basin

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