Experimental Setup for Evaluating Rock Volume Alteration and Its Application for Studying Shale Rock Swelling in Various Fluids

Abstract

Rock swelling and rock disintegration in the presence of drilling, stimulation and completion fluids are considered to be the main reasons for operational and production problems for wells in clay-rich formations. The impact of these fluids on rock properties shall be established for the effective treatment design. This paper describes the development of the experimental setup for studying rock swelling in reservoir conditions and the application of this setup for the evaluation of swelling mechanisms of shale rock samples. Swelling quantification was performed using measuring piston displacement that was caused by rock swelling in a piston accumulator during pressure maintenance. We studied the interaction of the disintegrated rock samples with water-based and hydrocarbon-based fluids and supercritical CO2. It was found that alkaline water solution in reservoir conditions causes swelling of the used rock samples in the amount of 1–3% vol. with a direct correlation between the rock swelling magnitude and the total clay content. The change in the rock volume in the presence of the used hydrocarbon-based fluid depends on the content of organic matter, its distribution in the rock, and the clay content. The observed swelling degree in the hydrocarbon fluid and CO2 was significantly lower (0–0.5% vol.) than in water. The proposed methodology and obtained results can further be used for the optimization of various operations in clay-rich formations.