The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Solid Earth Geophysics
Volume 12 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/feart.2024.1512685
This article is part of the Research Topic Geophysics and Petrophysics Issues Involved in Unconventional Oil and Gas Development Processes View all 5 articles
Experimental Study of Rock Permeability in Different Fluid Media: A Case Study of Two Clay-Free Sandstones
Provisionally accepted- 1 Chengdu North Petroleum Exploration and Development Technology Company Limited, Chengdu, China
- 2 State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Development Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Permeability is a fundamental property of porous media that describes the ability of a pore network to allow fluid flow through its pore spaces. However, permeability values can vary based on the fluid used in testing. To examine the influence of various fluids on permeability, without accounting for fluid-solid interactions, we measured 30 clay-free Fontainebleau sandstones and 30 clay-free Y sandstones using kerosene and N2. Our experiments revealed that all samples consistently exhibited lower oil permeability compared to the Klinkenberg-corrected gas permeability. Furthermore, SEM analysis revealed that the presence of liquid films on rock surfaces and particle migration within pore throats contribute to the permeability disparity between liquid and gas in Fontainebleau sandstone. For Y sandstone, its lesser hydrophilicity compared to Fontainebleau leads to a negligible presence of liquid film. The primary reason for the reduced liquid permeability, in comparison to gas, is particle migration. We also explored the relationship between the slip factor and permeability. We observed a more pronounced slip effect in Y sandstone than in Fontainebleau, attributed to its finer pore throats.
Keywords: Klinkenberg-corrected gas permeability, Kerosene, Liquid film, Fine migration, Slippage factor
Received: 17 Oct 2024; Accepted: 18 Dec 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Yang, Kang, Xu, Wang, Zhou, Jiang and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xin Yang, Chengdu North Petroleum Exploration and Development Technology Company Limited, Chengdu, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.