Distribution Model of Fluid Components and Quantitative Calculation of Movable Oil in Inter-Salt Shale Using 2D NMR

Abstract

Some inter-salt shale reservoirs have high oil saturations but the soluble salts in their complex lithology pose considerable challenges to their production. Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has been widely used in evaluating physical properties, fluid characteristics, and fluid saturation of conventional oil and gas reservoirs as well as common shale reservoirs. However, the fluid distribution analysis and fluid saturation calculations in inter-salt shale based on NMR results have not been investigated because of existing technical difficulties. Herein, to explore the fluid distribution patterns and movable oil saturation of the inter-salt shale, a specific experimental scheme was designed which is based on the joint adaptation of multi-state saturation, multi-temperature heating, and NMR measurements. This novel approach was applied to the inter-salt shale core samples from the Qianjiang Sag of the Jianghan Basin in China. The experiments were conducted using two sets of inter-salt shale samples, namely cylindrical and powder samples. Additionally, by comparing the one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) NMR results of these samples in oil-saturated and octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane-saturated states, the distributions of free movable oil and water were obtained. Meanwhile, the distributions of the free residual oil, adsorbed oil, and kerogen in the samples were obtained by comparing the 2D NMR T1-T2 maps of the original samples with the sample heated to five different temperatures of 80, 200, 350, 450, and 600 °C. This research puts forward a 2D NMR identification graph for fluid components in the inter-salt shale reservoirs. Our experimental scheme effectively solves the problems of fluid composition distribution and movable oil saturation calculation in the study area, which is of notable importance for subsequent exploration and production practices.