Contribution of Osmotic Transport on Oil Recovery from Rock Matrix in Unconventional Reservoirs

Abstract

Abstract The fluid transport mechanisms in fracture and rock matrix play a critical role in economic viability of hydrocarbon recovery from unconventional reservoirs. Several transport mechanisms, including advection, diffusion, and convection, have varying degrees of contribution to hydrocarbon recovery depending on the transport properties of the formation. The contribution of the concentration gradient driven diffusion, or osmotic transport on hydrocarbon recovery has been numerically investigated in this study. The main objective of this study is to determine when the osmotic transport plays an important role on the mass exchange between the fractures and the rock matrix. In this study, a model for the mass transport between the rock matrix and the fractures has been formulated and validated with the experimental data. The numerical results showed that osmosis is an important force imbibing water into low permeability rock matrix and enhancing the effectiveness of low salinity waterflooding on oil recovery. The imbibition of water into oil-wetted shale matrix is mainly driven by the osmotic transport and wettability alteration. The contribution of the osmotic transport on oil recovery continues a long period of time, typically in a few years. This contribution increases if the membrane efficiency is high and the matrix block size is small. However, shale membrane efficiency is typically less than 10% considerably reducing the oil recovery factor by osmosis to less than 5%. Higher membrane efficiency and lower diffusion coefficient of dissolved ions increase the contribution of osmosis on the oil recovery from shale matrix.