Advances and challenges in shale oil development: A critical review
Abstract view|1585|times PDF download|784|times
Abstract
Different from the conventional oil reservoirs, the primary storage space of shale is micro/nano pore networks. Moreover, the multiscale and multi-minerals characteristics of shale also attract increasing attentions from researchers. In this work, the advances and challenges in the development of shale oil are summarized from following aspects: phase behavior, flow mechanisms, reservoir numerical simulation and production optimization. The phase behavior of fluids confined in shale nanopores are discussed on the basis of theoretical calculations, experiments, and molecular simulations. The fluid transport mechanisms through shale matrix are analyzed in terms of molecular dynamics, pore scale simulations, and experimental studies. The methods employed in fracture propagation simulation and production optimization of shale oil are also introduced. Clarifying the problems of current research and the need for future studies are conducive to promoting the scientific and effective development of shale oil resources.
Cited as: Feng, Q., Xu, S., Xing, X., Zhang, W., Wang, S. Advances and challenges in shale oil development: A critical review. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2020, 4(4), 406-418, doi: 10.46690/ager.2020.04.06
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Alfi, M. Experimental study of confinement effect on phase behavior of hydrocarbons in nano-slit channels using nanofluidic devices. Texas A & M University, Texas, 2019.
Cipolla, C.L., Lolon, E., Mayerhofer, M.J., et al. Fracture design considerations in horizontal wells drilled in unconventional gas reservoirs. Paper SPE 119366 Presented at SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference, The Woodlands, Texas, USA, 19-21 January, 2009.
Clarkson, C.R., Solano, N., Bustin, R.M., et al. Pore structure characterization of North American shale gas reservoirs using USANS/SANS, gas adsorption, and mercury intrusion. Fuel 2013, 103: 606-616.
de Almeida, J.M., Miranda, C.R. Improved oil recovery in nanopores: NanoIOR. Sci. Rep. 2016, 6(1): 28128.
Deng, Y.E., Liu, C.Q. Mathematical model of nonlinear flow in low permeability porous media and its application. Acta Petrolei Sinica 2001, 22(4): 72-77. (in Chinese)
Dong, X., Liu, H., Hou, J., et al. Phase equilibria of confined fluids in nanopores of tight and shale rocks considering the effect of capillary pressure and adsorption film. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2016, 55(3): 798-811.
Falk, K., Coasne, B., Pellenq, R., et al. Subcontinuum mass transport of condensed hydrocarbons in nanoporous media. Nat. Commun. 2015, 6: 6949.
Falk, K., Sedlmeier, F., Joly, L., et al. Ultralow liquid/solid friction in carbon nanotubes: Comprehensive theory for alcohols, alkanes, OMCTS, and water. Langmuir 2012, 28(40): 14261-14272.
Feng, Q., Xu, S., Ren, G., et al. Hierarchical optimization of well pattern parameters in multi-stage fractured horizontal well for tight oil. Acta Petrolei Sinica 2019, 40(7): 830-838. (in Chinese)
Fonseca, R.R.M., Chen, B., Jansen, J.D., et al. A stochastic simplex approximate gradient (StoSAG) for optimization under uncertainty. Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 2017, 109(13): 1756-1776.
Golparvar, A., Zhou, Y., Wu, K., et al. A comprehensive review of pore scale modeling methodologies for multiphase flow in porous media. Adv. Geo-Energy Res. 2018, 2(4): 418-440.
Gordeliy, E., Peirce, A. Implicit level set schemes for modeling hydraulic fractures using the XFEM. Comput. Meth. Appl. Mech. Eng. 2013, 266: 125-143.
Ho, T.A., Striolo, A. Water and methane in shale rocks: Flow pattern effects on fluid transport and pore structure. AICHE J. 2015, 61(9): 2993-2999.
Holt, J.K., Park, H.G., Wang, Y., et al. Fast mass transport through sub-2-nanometer carbon nanotubes. Science 2006, 312(5776): 1034-1037.
Holt, S. Numerical optimization of hydraulic fracture stage placement in a gas shale reservoir. Delft University of Technology, Delft, 2011.
Huang, X., Bandilla, K.W., Celia, M.A. Multi-physics pore-network modeling of two-phase shale matrix flows. Transp. Porous Media 2016, 111(1): 123-141.
Huang, Y.Z., Yang, Z.M., He, Y., et al. Nonlinear porous flow in low permeability porous media. Mech. Eng. 2013, 35(5): 1-8.
Jahandideh, A., Jafarpour, B. Optimization of hydraulic fracturing design under spatially variable shale fracability. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 2016, 138: 174-188.
Javadpour, F., McClure, M., Naraghi, M.E. Slip-corrected liquid permeability and its effect on hydraulic fracturing and fluid loss in shale. Fuel 2015, 160: 549-559.
Karimi-Fard, M., Durlofsky, L.J., Aziz, K. An efficient discrete-fracture model applicable for general-purpose reservoir simulators. SPE J. 2004, 9(2): 227-236.
Lafuma, A., Qu ´er ´e, D. Superhydrophobic states. Nat. Mater. 2003, 2(7): 457-460.
Lecampion, B. An extended finite element method for hydraulic fracture problems. Commun. Numer. Methods Eng. 2009, 25(2): 121-133.
Li, C., Singh, H., Cai, J. Spontaneous imbibition in shale: A review of recent advances. Capillarity 2019, 2(2): 17-32.
Li, Z., Yao, J., Kou, J. Mixture composition effect on hydrocarbon-water transport in shale organic nanochannels. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2019, 10(15): 4291-4296.
Liu, K., Lin, Z., Cao, D., et al. Mathematical model for the fluid-gas spontaneous displacement in nanoscale porous media considering the slippage and temperature. Math. Probl. Eng. 2018, 3245498.
Liu, K., Ostadhassan, M., Zhou, J., et al. Nanoscale pore structure characterization of the Bakken shale in the USA. Fuel 2017, 209: 567-578.
Liu, Z., Reynolds, A.C. History matching an unconventional reservoir with a complex fracture network. Paper SPE 193921 Presented at SPE Reservoir Simulation Conference, Galveston, Texas, USA, 10-11 April, 2019.
Liu, Z., Reynolds, A.C. A sequential-quadratic-programming-filter algorithm with a modified stochastic gradient for robust life-cycle optimization problems with nonlinear state constraints. SPE J. 2020, 25(4): 1938-1963.
Luo, S., Nasrabadi, H., Lutkenhaus, J.L. Effect of confinement on the bubble points of hydrocarbons in nanoporous media. AICHE J. 2016, 62(5): 1772-1780.
Ma, X., Gildin, E., Plaksina, T. Efficient optimization framework for integrated placement of horizontal wells and hydraulic fracture stages in unconventional gas reservoirs. J. Unconv. Oil Gas Res. 2015, 9: 1-17.
Ma, X., Plaksina, T., Gildin, E. Optimization of placement of hydraulic fracture stages in horizontal wells drilled in shale gas reservoirs. Paper URTEC 1580378 Presented at Unconventional Resources Technology Conference, Denver, Colorado, USA, 12-14 August, 2013.
Majumder, M., Chopra, N., Andrews, R., et al. Enhanced flow in carbon nanotubes. Nature 2005, 438(7064): 44.
Mcclure, M.W. Modeling and characterization of hydraulic stimulation and induced seismicity in geothermal and shale gas reservoirs. Stanford University, California, 2012.
McClure, M.W., Kang, C.A. A three-dimensional reservoir, wellbore, and hydraulic fracturing simulator that is compositional and thermal, tracks proppant and water solute transport, includes non-darcy and non-newtonian flow, and Handles fracture closure. Paper SPE 182593 Presented at SPE Reservoir Simulation Conference, the Montgomery, Texas, USA, 20-22 February, 2017.
Mehmani, A., Kelly, S., Torres-Verdín, C., et al. Residual oil saturation following gas injection in sandstones: Microfluidic quantification of the impact of pore-scale surface roughness. Fuel 2019, 251: 147-161.
Mehmani, A., Prodanović, M. The effect of microporosity on transport properties in porous media. Adv. Water Resour. 2014, 63: 104-119.
Mehmani, A., Prodanović, M., Javadpour, F. Multiscale, multiphysics network modeling of shale matrix gas flows. Transp. Porous Media 2013, 99(2): 377-390.
Meng, M., Chen, Z., Liao, X., et al. A well-testing method for parameter evaluation of multiple fractured horizontal wells with non-uniform fractures in shale oil reservoirs. Adv. Geo-Energy Res. 2020, 4(2): 187-198.
Meyer, B., Bazan, L. A discrete fracture network model for hydraulically induced fractures-theory, parametric and case studies. Paper SPE 140514 Presented at SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference, The woodlands, Texas, USA, 24-26 January, 2011.
Moinfar, A., Varavei, A., Sepehrnoori, K., et al. Development of an efficient embedded discrete fracture model for 3D compositional reservoir simulation in fractured reservoirs. SPE J. 2014, 19(2): 289-303.
Morozov, A.D., Popkov, D.O., Duplyakov, V.M., et al. Data-driven model for hydraulic fracturing design optimization: Focus on building digital database and production forecast. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 2020, 194: 107504.
Nguyen, P., Carey, J.W., Viswanathan, H.S., et al. Effectiveness of supercritical-CO2 and N2 huff-and-puff methods of enhanced oil recovery in shale fracture networks using microfluidic experiments. Appl. Energy 2018, 230: 160-174.
Nojabaei, B., Johns, R.T., Chu, L. Effect of capillary pressure on phase behavior in tight rocks and shales. SPE Reserv. Eval. Eng. 2013, 16(3): 281-289.
Olson, J. Multi-fracture propagation modeling: Applications to hydraulic fracturing in shales and tight gas sands. Paper ARMA 08-327 Presented at The 42nd U.S. Rock Mechanics Symposum, San Francisco, California, USA, 29 June-2 July, 2008.
Plaksina, T., Gildin, E. Practical handling of multiple objectives using evolutionary strategy for optimal placement of hydraulic fracture stages in unconventional gas reservoirs. J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng. 2015, 27: 443-451.
Reagan, M.T., Queiruga, A.F., Moridis, G.J. Simulation of gas production from multilayered hydrate-bearing media with fully coupled flow, thermal, chemical and geomechanical processes using TOUGH+ millstone. Part 3: Production simulation results. Transp. Porous Media 2019, 129(1): 179-202.
Ren, G., Jiang, J., Younis, R.M. A fully coupled XFEM-EDFM model for multiphase flow and geomechanics in fractured tight gas reservoirs. Procedia Comput. Sci. 2016, 80: 1404-1415.
Ren, G., Jiang, J., Younis, R.M. A model for coupled geomechanics and multiphase flow in fractured porous media using embedded meshes. Adv. Water Resour. 2018, 122: 113-130.
Rongved, M., Holt, R.M., Larsen, I. The effect of heterogeneity on multiple fracture interaction and on the effect of a non-uniform perforation cluster distribution. Geomech. Geophys. Geo-Energy Geo-Resour. 2019, 5(1): 315-332.
Sahai, V., Jackson, G., Rai, R.R. Effect of non-uniform fracture spacing and fracture half-length on well spacing for unconventional gas reservoirs. Paper SPE 164927 Presented at EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition incorporating SPE Europec, London, UK, 10-13 June, 2013.
Shakiba, M. Modeling and simulation of fluid flow in naturally and hydraulically fractured reservoirs using embedded discrete fracture model (EDFM). The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, 2014.
Singh, S.K., Sinha, A., Deo, G., et al. Vapor-liquid phase coexistence, critical properties, and surface tension of confined alkanes. J. Phys. Chem. C 2009, 113(17): 7170-7180.
Sobecki, N., Nieto-Draghi, C., Di Lella, A., et al. Phase behavior of hydrocarbons in nano-pores. Fluid Phase Equilib. 2019, 497: 104-121.
Song, Y., Song, Z., Feng, D., et al. Phase behavior of hydrocarbon mixture in shale nanopores considering the effect of adsorption and its induced critical shifts. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2020, 59(17): 8374-8382.
Taleghani, A.D. Analysis of hydraulic fracture propagation in fractured reservoirs: An improved model for the interaction between induced and natural fractures. The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, 2009.
Teklu, T.W., Alharthy, N., Kazemi, H., et al. Phase behavior and minimum miscibility pressure in nanopores. SPE Reserv. Eval. Eng. 2014, 17(3): 396-403.
Thomas, J.A., McGaughey, A.J.H. Reassessing fast water transport through carbon nanotubes. Nano Lett. 2008, 8(9): 2788-2793.
Tolman, R.C. The effect of droplet size on surface tension. J. Chem. Phys. 1949, 17: 333-337.
Wang, F., Yue, X.A., Xu, S.L., et al. Influence of wettability on flow characteristics of water through microtubes and cores. Chin. Sci. Bull. 2009, 54(13): 2256-2262.
Wang, S., Feng, Q., Javadpour, F., et al. Multiscale modeling of gas transport in shale matrix: An integrated study of molecular dynamics and rigid-pore-network model. SPE J. 2020, 25(3): 1416-1442.
Wang, S., Javadpour, F., Feng, Q. Confinement correction to mercury intrusion capillary pressure of shale nanopores. Sci. Rep. 2016a, 6: 20160.
Wang, S., Javadpour, F., Feng, Q. Molecular dynamics simulations of oil transport through inorganic nanopores in shale. Fuel 2016b, 171: 74-86.
Wang, S., Li, Z., Wang, S., et al. Well pattern optimization based on StoSAG algorithm. Adv. Geo-Energy Res. 2018, 2(1): 103-112.
Wang, W., Zheng, D., Sheng, G., et al. A review of stimulated reservoir volume characterization for multiple fractured horizontal well in unconventional reservoirs. Adv. Geo-Energy Res. 2017, 1(1): 54-63.
Wang, X.L., Shi, F., Liu, C., et al. Extended finite element simulation of fracture network propagation in formation containing frictional and cemented natural fractures. J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng. 2018, 50: 309-324.
Werder, T., Walther, J.H., Jaffe, R.L., et al. On the water-carbon interaction for use in molecular dynamics simulations of graphite and carbon nanotubes. J. Phys. Chem. B 2003, 107: 1345-1352.
Wilson, K.C., Durlofsky, L.J. Optimization of shale gas field development using direct search techniques and reduced-physics models. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 2013, 108: 304-315.
Wu, K., Chen, Z., Li, J., et al. Wettability effect on nanoconfined water flow. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2017, 114(13): 3358-3363.
Wu, K., Chen, Z., Li, J., et al. Nanoconfinement effect on n-alkane flow. J. Phys. Chem. C 2019, 123(26): 16456-16461.
Wu, K., Olson, J.E. Simultaneous multifracture treatments: Fully coupled fluid flow and fracture mechanics for horizontal wells. SPE J. 2015, 20(2): 337-346.
Wu, K., Olson, J.E. Mechanisms of simultaneous hydraulic-fracture propagation from multiple perforation clusters in horizontal wells. SPE J. 2016, 21(3): 1000-1008.
Wu, Q., Ok, J.T., Sun, Y., et al. Optic imaging of single and two-phase pressure-driven flows in nano-scale channels. Lab Chip 2013, 13(6): 1165-1171.
Xiong, Y., Yu, J., Sun, H., et al. A new non-darcy flow model for low-velocity multiphase flow in tight reservoirs. Transp. Porous Media 2017, 117(3): 367-383.
Xu, J., Jiang, R., Xie, L., et al. Transient pressure behavior for dual porosity low permeability reservoir based on modified Darcy. Paper SPE 153480 Presented at SPE Latin America and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference. Mexico City, Mexico, USA, 16-18 April, 2012.
Xu, J., Li, Y., Boundary conditions at the solid-liquid surface over the multiscale channel size from nanometer to micron. Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 2007, 50(13-14): 2571-2581.
Xu, J., Yang, C., Sheng, Y.J., et al. Apparent hydrodynamic slip induced by density inhomogeneities at fluid-solid interfaces. Soft Matter 2015, 11(35): 6916-6920.
Xu, S., Feng, Q., Li, Y., et al. An integrated workflow for fracture propagation and reservoir simulation in tight oil. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 2019, 179: 1159-1172.
Xu, S., Feng, Q., Wang, S., et al. Optimization of multistage fractured horizontal well in tight oil based on embedded discrete fracture model. Comput. Chem. Eng. 2018, 117: 291-308.
Xu, W., Ganguly, U., Weng, X. Wiremesh: A novel shale fracturing simulator. Paper SPE 132218 Presented at International Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Beijing, China, 8-10 June, 2010.
Yan, B., Wang, Y., Killough, J.E. A fully compositional modelconsidering the effect of nanopores in tight oil reservoirs. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 2017, 152: 675-682.
Yang, Y., Wang K., Zhang, L., et al. Pore-scale simulation of shale oil flow based on pore network model. Fuel 2019, 251: 683-692.
Yao, J., Song, W., Wang, D., et al. Multi-scale pore network modelling of fluid mass transfer in nano-micro porous media. Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 2019, 141: 156-167.
Zarragoicoechea, G.J., Kuz, V.A. Critical shift of a confined fluid in a nanopore. Fluid Phase Equilib. 2004, 220(1): 7-9.
Zha, W., Li, X., Xing, Y., et al. Reconstruction of shale image based on Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Networks with gradient penalty. Adv. Geo-Energy Res. 2020, 4(1): 107-114.
Zhang, Q., Su, Y., Wang, W., et al. Apparent permeability for liquid transport in nanopores of shale reservoirs: Coupling flow enhancement and near wall flow. Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 2017a, 115: 224-234.
Zhang, T., Li, X., Sun, Z., et al. An analytical model for relative permeability in water-wet nanoporous media. Chem. Eng. Sci. 2017b, 174: 1-12.
Zhang, W., Feng, Q., Wang, S., et al. Oil diffusion in shale nanopores: Insight of molecular dynamics simulation. J. Mol. Liq. 2019, 290: 111183.
Zhuang, Z., Liu, Z.L., Wang, T., et al. The key mechanical problems on hydraulic fracture in shale. Chin. Sci. Bull. 2016, 61: 72-81.
Zou, C., Yang, Z., Cui, J., et al. Formation mechanism, geological characteristics and development strategy of nonmarine shale oil in China. Pet. Explor. Dev. 2013, 40(1): 15-27.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2020 The Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.