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Experimental Investigation on Dilation Mechanisms of Land-Facies Karamay Oil Sand Reservoirs under Water Injection

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Abstract

The success of steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is strongly dependent on the formation of a homogeneous and highly permeable zone in the land-facies Karamay oil sand reservoirs. To accomplish this, hydraulic fracturing is applied through controlled water injection to a pair of horizontal wells to create a dilation zone between the dual wells. The mechanical response of the reservoirs during this injection process, however, has remained unclear for the land-facies oil sand that has a loosely packed structure. This research conducted triaxial, permeability and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) tests on the field-collected oil sand samples. The tests evaluated the influences of the field temperature, confining stress and injection pressure on the dilation mechanisms as shear dilation and tensile parting during injection. To account for petrophysical heterogeneity, five reservoir rocks including regular oil sand, mud-rich oil sand, bitumen-rich oil sand, mudstone and sandstone were investigated. It was found that the permeability evolution in the oil sand samples subjected to shear dilation closely followed the porosity and microcrack evolutions in the shear bands. In contrast, the mudstone and sandstone samples developed distinct shear planes, which formed preferred permeation paths. Tensile parting expanded the pore space and increased the permeability of all the samples in various degrees. Based on this analysis, it is concluded that the range of injection propagation in the pay zone determines the overall quality of hydraulic fracturing, while the injection pressure must be carefully controlled. A region in a reservoir has little dilation upon injection if it remains unsaturated. Moreover, a cooling of the injected water can strengthen the dilation potential of a reservoir. Finally, it is suggested that the numerical modeling of water injection in the Karamay oil sand reservoirs must take into account the volumetric plastic strain in hydrostatic loading.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support for this research was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51404281, 51325402), the Science Foundation of China University of Petroleum, Beijing (No. 2462013YJRC037) and the Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Prospecting (No. PRP/indep-4-1309). These supports are greatly appreciated. We would also like to express our gratitude to Xinjiang Oilfield Corporation for providing us the field-collected oil sand samples. We extend thanks to Dandan Li, Xing Liu and Jingnan Dong for their hard work on the triaxial tests.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Botao Lin, Yan Jin & Huiwen Pang

  2. School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 73019, USA

    Amy B. Cerato

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  1. Botao Lin
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  2. Yan Jin
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  3. Huiwen Pang
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  4. Amy B. Cerato
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Correspondence to Botao Lin.

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Lin, B., Jin, Y., Pang, H. et al. Experimental Investigation on Dilation Mechanisms of Land-Facies Karamay Oil Sand Reservoirs under Water Injection. Rock Mech Rock Eng 49, 1425–1439 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-015-0817-8

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