Studies of the storage and transport of water and oil in organic-rich shale using vacuum imbibition method

Abstract

The inorganic pores, organic pores, and kerogen matrix are important media to store water and oil in shale rocks. We present a vacuum imbibition method to identify the volume of water and oil in these media. Before the experiments, comprehensive rock characterizations were carried out on shale samples from Shahejie Formation combining various methods including N2 adsorption, scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction, and RockEval pyrolysis. Total organic carbon (TOC) accounts for 1.59–5.97% of total rock weight. Kerogen thermal maturity (Ro) of the studied samples is 0.62–1.05%. Then, vacuum imbibition experiments were conducted on shale samples using water and n-dodecane. The accurate volumes of water in organic pores, oil in inorganic pores and organic pores, and the volume of dissolved oil were determined from vacuum imbibition experiments. The effects of Ro on shale storage were analyzed. Furthermore, novel mathematical models of oil and water vacuum imbibition in shale were proposed. The water imbibition in inorganic pores is a capillary flow. The oil imbibition in shale includes capillary flow in pore structures and diffusion in kerogen. The pore-kerogen double diffuse layer (PKDDL) physical model was proposed for the mechanisms of the hydrocarbon mass transfer between pore structures and kerogen. The capillary pressure and the dissolution rate constants were obtained by matching mathematical models with experimental results. This study provides new methods to evaluate the water and oil storage and transfer in organic-rich shale and advances the crucial mechanisms for the evaluation and development of shale reservoirs.