Impacts of pore size distribution on gas injection in intraformational water zones in oil sands reservoirs

• Main Authors: Xu Jinze, Chen Zhangxin, Li Ran
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2020-01-01
• Series: Oil & Gas Science and Technology
• Online Access: https://ogst.ifpenergiesnouvelles.fr/articles/ogst/full_html/2020/01/ogst200033/ogst200033.html

Intraformational water zones are widely reported in Canadian oil sands fields. In order to pressurize a thief zone, one of the initiatives is to inject gas. However, the evaluation of gas injectivity based on a pore size distribution is still a big challenge. This study provides a multi-scale approach to study the effect of a pore size distribution on gas injectivity in intraformational water zones. The results indicate the gas effective permeability increases in a less complex and more discrete pore network. The enhancement of gas effective permeability with increased gas saturation weakens with higher complexity and lower discreteness of a pore network. A less complex and more discrete pore network better benefits the gas injectivity index.