The study on experimental method of fluid stress sensitivity of low permeability in tight reservoir

Abstract

According to the industry standard, low permeability and tight reservoir are highly stress-sensitive in laboratory tests. However, this phenomenon has not been effectively confirmed in the field production test. For this reason, a method to measure stress sensitivity by axial loading is proposed. By loading fixed axial stress, the measurement method achieves the effect of equivalent preloading fluid pressure. Meanwhile, the equivalent theoretical curve can be obtained by translating the curve. Through this method, the stress sensitivity of the core with microfracture is studied. According to the results, the stress sensitivity of the cores can be divided into two stages: the first stage is the non-opening stage of microfractures, in which the stress sensitivity is weak; the second stage is the opening stage of microfractures, in which the stress sensitivity increases sharply. When the permeability changes significantly, the corresponding pressure is the microfracture's opening pressure. In addition, if the abscissa of the experimental results corresponds to the field production data, the field stress sensitivity curve of the field reservoir can be obtained. Conventional stress sensitivity test shows that the four cores in the study block exhibit medium to strong stress sensitivity. According to the stress sensitivity curve analysis after curve translation, the stress sensitivity of the reservoir is about 25% in the elastic production stage, which is classified as weak stress sensitivity. This conclusion can effectively support the phenomenon of the unobvious stress sensitivity in the field production of low permeability and tight reservoirs.