Abstract
Inorganic pore structures are critical to understand the oil and gas transport and storage properties of unconventional reservoirs. However, it can be difficult to quantitatively and qualitatively interpret the relationship between the inorganic pore structure and particle arrangement in terms of particle size and the brittle and clay mineral composition of shale. In this paper, artificial core simulations and mathematical modeling were performed to explore the effects of brittle mineral and clay mineral assemblages on shale pore structures. The artificial cores were subjected to computerized tomography and scanning electron microscopy analysis, as well as porosity and permeability testing. The results show that shale porosity and permeability increase with the brittle to clay mineral particle size ratio. This phenomenon is caused by the different arrangements of inorganic minerals in shale when the brittle to clay mineral particle size ratio is < 1 and > 1. A theoretical mathematical model based on mineral arrangement shows that shale permeability can be characterized by the inverse proportional function of mineral particle size. This investigation of shale pore heterogeneities on meso- and macroscales based on artificial cores provides new insights into the simulation of oil and gas transport in micro- to nanoscale pores and the understanding of pore evolution during the first diagenesis stage of shale, which is mainly composed of inorganic minerals.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41872250). The authors are also very grateful to anonymous reviewers for their very constructive and helpful comments on the final manuscript. The laboratory studies in this paper were done at the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), and we received help from the Key Lab of Carbonate Reservoirs, CNPC, Hangzhou, China.
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List of Symbols
List of Symbols
- Φ :
-
Theoretical porosity of an artificial core
- V :
-
Theoretical volume of an artificial core
- r core :
-
Radius of an artificial core
- h :
-
Height of an artificial core
- V NaCl :
-
Theoretical volume of NaCl
- V Q :
-
Theoretical volume of quartz
- V S :
-
Theoretical volume of smectite
- a Q :
-
Mass percentages of quartz
- a S :
-
Mass percentages of smectite
- C u :
-
Coefficient of uniformity, Cu = D60/D10, D60 = size of the particle corresponding to 60% finer and, D10 = size of the particle corresponding to 10% finer
- D B :
-
Brittle mineral side length
- D C :
-
Clay mineral length
- d :
-
Height of each clay mineral
- L :
-
Cubic shale sample side length
- L T :
-
Actual length of the connected pores
- m B :
-
Mass of the brittle minerals
- n B :
-
Number of brittle minerals in shale
- ρ B :
-
Density of the brittle minerals
- m C :
-
Mass of the clay minerals
- ρ C :
-
Density of the clay minerals
- m S :
-
Mass of the shale
- ω B :
-
Mass ratio of the brittle minerals in the shale
- N B :
-
Number of the brittle minerals in the vertical or longitudinal direction
- N C :
-
Number of clay minerals in the longitudinal direction
- k :
-
Permeability
- r :
-
Diameter of the connected pores
- A :
-
Shale cross-sectional area
- n :
-
Number of connected pores
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Zhou, W.D., Xie, S.Y., Bao, Z.Y. et al. Modeling of the Correlation Between Mineral Size and Shale Pore Structure at Meso- and Macroscales. Math Geosci 54, 131–150 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11004-021-09954-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11004-021-09954-w