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Impacts of water flooding on pore structure of sandstone reservoirs—case study of Wang Guantun oilfield, Bohai Bay Basin, China

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Abstract

To study the variation mechanism of pore structure of sandstone reservoir in different stages of water flooding, water flooding experiment and a series of parallel tests are performed on typical continental sandstone samples from the Bohai Bay Basin of China, including thin sections (TS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), rate-controlled mercury injection (RMI), and X-ray computer tomography (CT). SEM results showed that three pore types existed in sandstone reservoir, including inter-granular pores, dissolution pores, and pores within clay aggregates. By comparing the mineral composition and pore throat characteristics of samples, we observed the variation characteristics of pore structure in different stages of water flooding are different, and the potential factors that affect these variations mainly were the original pore structure of rocks and the content of swelling-intend mineral. For the reservoir with larger pore size and more smectite, pore spaces were reduced, and pore throats were blocked by the clay swelling and particle migration in the early stage of water flooding. As water injection volume increases, the injected water plays a major role to wash tiny particles away, which results in pore spaces increasing and some closed pores re-open. For the reservoir with smaller pore size and less smectite, the dominant mechanism in the early stage of water flooding was pore space cleaning—tiny particle was washed away from the pore path, which results in pore size increasing. As water injection volume increases, clay swelling reaction becomes to be the critical factor, reducing the pore size. This study makes clear the variation regularity and the variation mechanism of pore structure of continental sandstone reservoir in different stages of water flooding based on the combination of CT scan and water flooding experiment.

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Abbreviations

CNPC:

China National Petroleum Corporation

CB:

coring barrel

CT:

X-ray computer tomography

RMI:

rate-controlled mercury injection

PMI:

pressure-controlled mercury injection

SEM:

scanning electron microscopy

XRD:

X-ray diffraction

TS:

thin sections

NMR:

nuclear magnetic resonance

RPOP:

relative percentage of open pore

PRP:

pore ratio in plane

PV:

pore volume

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the data support by Da Gang Oilfield, CNPC.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science and Technology Major Project (Grant No. 2016ZX05010-001, 2016ZX05014002-008) and the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2015CB250901).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resource and Prospecting, Beijing, 102249, China

    Xixin Wang, Yuming Liu & Jiagen Hou

  2. College of Geosciences, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing, 102249, China

    Xixin Wang, Yuming Liu & Jiagen Hou

  3. Harold Hamm School of Geology & Geological Engineering, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, 58202, USA

    Dongmei Wang

  4. CNPC Da Gang Oilfield, Tianjin, 061100, China

    Ling Ji & Jian Sun

  5. Sinopec Petroleum Exploration and Production Research Institute, Beijing, 100083, China

    Yongqiang Li

  6. PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Changbei Operating Company, Xi’an, 710000, China

    Xuecheng Yan

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  1. Xixin Wang
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  2. Yuming Liu
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  3. Jiagen Hou
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  4. Dongmei Wang
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Correspondence to Yuming Liu or Jiagen Hou.

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Wang, X., Liu, Y., Hou, J. et al. Impacts of water flooding on pore structure of sandstone reservoirs—case study of Wang Guantun oilfield, Bohai Bay Basin, China. Arab J Geosci 11, 580 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-018-3897-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-018-3897-4

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