Effects of early oil emplacement on reservoir quality and gas migration in the Lower Jurassic tight sand reservoirs of Dibei gas field, Kuqa Depression, western China

Abstract

It is common for many tight gas sandstone reservoirs to have experienced an early oil charge before gas invading. To determine the effects of early oil emplacement on reservoir quality and gas migration has important role in predicting “sweet spots” of gas production in tight sand reservoirs. We investigated the palaeo and current fluids contacts accurately due to parameters from quantitative grain fluorescence in the Lower Jurassic Ahe Formation of Dibei gas field. The porosity and permeability values in palaeo-oil leg are totally higher than in palaeo-water leg, especially there being a wide gap of permeability with an order of magnitude. The variation of reservoir quality derives from the early oil emplacement, which restrained clay conversions from kaolinite or illite-smectite mixed-layer into fibrous illite that dramatically increasing flow-path tortuosity in sandstones, according to core analysis and X-ray diffraction. The early oil preserved penetrating quality of palaeo-oil leg, but the sandstones that never experienced early oil emplacement contains much more fibrous illite. It made most of early oil pathways subsequently act as the migration pathways for late gas and less than 50% of the migration pathways for gas were caused by microfractures due to quantitative grain fluorescence. Only the sandstones with medium early oil saturation did become sweet spots for gas in the tight sand reservoirs. Too much and too little oil once saturated in pores maybe adverse to the late gas migration and accumulation.