Impact of chlorites on the wettability of tight oil sandstone reservoirs in the Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation, Ordos Basin, China

Abstract

Wettability is an essential property of reservoirs that is of great importance for enhancing oil recovery (EOR) and oil migration. The wettability of reservoirs is generally believed to be strongly affected by mineral compositions but it is not always the case. An integrated study of petrography and wettability was carried out to determine the impact of chlorite minerals on the wettability of the sandstone reservoirs in the Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation. Chlorites are found to be commonly present in the reservoir sandstones as detrital grains, rim-shaped cements, and biotite-chloritized forms with the pore peripheries being largely coated by chlorite, which is the main mineral in direct contact with pores. At pore scale, the wetting state of chlorites can either be oil-wet or water-wet in the tight sandstone reservoirs depending on wettability alteration by oil charge. Chlorites in contact with pores occupy a large of proportions of oil-wet pore walls and are crucial for the formation of oil-wetting state of reservoir sandstones. At core scale, the contents of chlorites in direct contact with pores does not correlate well with the Amott-Harvey index due to other factors such as heterogeneity, oil-bearing degrees of samples.