Influence of Adsorption and Capillary Pressure on Phase Equilibria inside Shale Reservoirs

Abstract

As a result of the small pore sizes and organic content of shale, capillary pressure and adsorption are two effects that should be taken into account in the study of phase equilibrium inside shale. The inclusion of both effects in the phase equilibrium modeling can shed light on how bulk phase composition inside the porous media changes with the temperature and pressure and how the phase equilibrium changes accordingly. In the long run, such a model can be used in reservoir simulation for more complicated analysis. In this study, we present a calculation method that can effectively include adsorption and capillarity. We propose to introduce an excess adsorbed phase and treat the remaining substance inside the pores as a bulk phase (gas, liquid, or both) to make the mass balance formulation simpler. The adsorbed phase is modeled by the multicomponent Langmuir (ML) equation for its simplicity and computational efficiency. A more theoretical adsorption model, the multicomponent potential theory of adsorption...