A review on the effect of confinement on phase behavior in tight formations

Abstract Unconventional resources, including tight oil and gas formations and shale plays, have become a vital source of energy all over the world. The unique characteristic of these reservoirs, which has made their development challenging, is the low-to ultra-low- permeability due to the abundance of nano-scale pores. In these tiny pores and pore-throats, phase behavior and saturation pressures of the confined fluid are shifted from those of the bulk fluid within larger pores of the conventional medium-to high-permeability reservoirs. During the past few decades, many scholars attempted to compare this alteration in fluid phase behavior inside the tiny pores of tight formations to that of the bulk by studying the fundamentals behind this behavior through mathematical models, simulations, and experimental studies. Reduced pore size and pore structure, mineralogy, adsorption, and capillary condensation phenomena have been addressed in different studies as the source of this deviation in properties. Attempts to model fluid phase behavior in narrow pores started by applying the knowledge of classical thermodynamics in molecular simulations of the confined fluid, which has an inhomogeneous distribution inside the narrow pores. This was followed by modifying different types of equations of state to capture the difference in saturation pressures and temperatures of the confined fluid and that of the bulk. Experimental efforts in this area cover a wide range of non-visual approaches and precise visual approaches using the lab-on-a-chip techniques. However, conducting experiments at the nano-scale, specifically less than 100 nm, is rare due to many experimental limitations. This review provides a comprehensive summary of the theoretical and experimental studies in this area, highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each method, and indicates a lack of data at the challenging range of pore scales, less than 10 nm, for simulation validation purposes.

[1]  Yusuke Hiejima,et al.  Phase behaviour of water confined in Vycor glass at high temperatures and pressures , 2004 .

[2]  Chan,et al.  Phase separation, density fluctuation, and critical dynamics of N2 in aerogel. , 1993, Physical review letters.

[3]  Farzam Javadpour,et al.  Oil adsorption in shale nanopores and its effect on recoverable oil-in-place , 2015 .

[4]  B. Peng,et al.  A density functional theory with a mean-field weight function: applications to surface tension, adsorption, and phase transition of a Lennard-Jones fluid in a slit-like pore. , 2008, The journal of physical chemistry. B.

[5]  Tarek Ahmed,et al.  Reservoir Engineering Handbook , 2002 .

[6]  V. A. Kuz,et al.  van der Waals equation of state for a fluid in a nanopore. , 2002, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[7]  R. Roque-Malherbe.  Adsorption and Diffusion in Nanoporous Materials , 2007 .

[8]  I. Akkutlu,et al.  Pore-Size Dependence of Fluid Phase Behavior and Properties in Organic-Rich Shale Reservoirs , 2013 .

[9]  K. Gubbins,et al.  Fluid behaviour in narrow pores , 1986 .

[10]  U. Kuila,et al.  Specific surface area and pore‐size distribution in clays and shales , 2013 .

[11]  A. N. Olenin,et al.  CARS diagnostics of molecular media under nanoporous confinement , 2008 .

[12]  Kai Welke,et al.  Freezing, melting and structure of ice in a hydrophilic nanopore. , 2010, Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP.

[13]  H. Kazemi,et al.  Rock Characterization in Unconventional Reservoirs: A Comparative Study of Bakken, Eagle Ford, and Niobrara Formations , 2016 .

[14]  Carl H. Sondergeld,et al.  New Pore-scale Considerations for Shale Gas in Place Calculations , 2010 .

[15]  M. Thommes,et al.  Critical Depletion of a Pure Fluid in Controlled-Pore Glass. Experimental Results and Grand Canonical Ensemble Monte Carlo Simulation , 1995 .

[16]  Jodie L. Lutkenhaus,et al.  Effect of confinement on the bubble points of hydrocarbons in nanoporous media , 2016 .

[17]  Amanda M. M. Bustin,et al.  Impact of Shale Properties on Pore Structure and Storage Characteristics , 2008 .

[18]  V. A. Kuz,et al.  Critical shift of a confined fluid in a nanopore , 2004 .

[19]  Carl H. Sondergeld,et al.  Micro-Structural Studies of Gas Shales , 2010 .

[20]  A. Jamili,et al.  Modifying van der Waals Equation of State to Consider Influence of Confinement on Phase Behavior , 2013 .

[21]  Bruno Pinho,et al.  A microfluidic approach for investigating multicomponent system thermodynamics at high pressures and temperatures. , 2014, Lab on a chip.

[22]  W. J. Lee,et al.  Gas Storage and Transport in Devonian Shales , 1989 .

[23]  Taewan Kim,et al.  Nanoscale fluid transport: size and rate effects. , 2008, Nano letters.

[24]  Philip H. Nelson,et al.  Pore-throat sizes in sandstones, tight sandstones, and shales , 2009 .

[25]  Jayant K. Singh,et al.  Vapor-Liquid Phase Coexistence, Critical Properties, and Surface Tension of Confined Alkanes , 2009 .

[26]  F. Asdrubali,et al.  Recent Trends in the World Gas Market: Economical, Geopolitical and Environmental Aspects , 2016 .

[27]  Xi Chen,et al.  Pressurized liquid in nanopores: a modified Laplace-Young equation. , 2009, Nano letters.

[28]  G. Mansoori,et al.  Behavior of the confined hard-sphere fluid within nanoslits: A fundamental-measure density-functional theory study , 2008 .

[29]  J. Meegoda,et al.  Micro/Nano-pore Network Analysis of Gas Flow in Shale Matrix , 2015, Scientific Reports.

[30]  Faruk Civan,et al.  Phase Behavior of Gas Condensates in Shales Due to Pore Proximity Effects: Implications for Transport, Reserves and Well Productivity , 2012 .

[31]  C. Jackson,et al.  The melting behavior of organic materials confined in porous solids , 1990 .

[32]  S. Clarke,et al.  COMPETITIVE ADSORPTION OF SIMPLE LINEAR ALKANE MIXTURES ONTO GRAPHITE , 1998 .

[33]  N. Morrow,et al.  Retrograde Condensation in Porous Media , 1973 .

[34]  Chet Ozgen,et al.  Thermodynamics of Multiphase Flow in Unconventional Liquids-Rich Reservoirs , 2012 .

[35]  R. Dawe,et al.  Immiscible Displacement in Cross-Bedded Heterogeneous Porous Media , 2011 .

[36]  Erling Halfdan Stenby,et al.  Effect of Low Permeable Porous Media on Behavior of Gas Condensate , 2000 .

[37]  Shahnawaz H. Molla,et al.  Condensation in Nanoporous Packed Beds. , 2016, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[38]  A. Firoozabadi,et al.  Phase Behavior and Adsorption of Pure Substances and Mixtures and Characterization in Nanopore Structures by Density Functional Theory , 2014 .

[39]  A. Firoozabadi,et al.  Interfacial tension of nonassociating pure substances and binary mixtures by density functional theory combined with Peng-Robinson equation of state. , 2009, The Journal of chemical physics.

[40]  Debjyoti Banerjee,et al.  Experimental investigation of confinement effect on phase behavior of hexane, heptane and octane using lab-on-a-chip technology , 2016 .

[41]  M. Deo,et al.  Geologic Controls on Production of Shale Play Resources: Case of the Eagle Ford, Bakken and Niobrara , 2014 .

[42]  R. Marc Bustin,et al.  The importance of shale composition and pore structure upon gas storage potential of shale gas reservoirs , 2009 .

[43]  S. Sandler,et al.  Critical behavior of pure confined fluids from an extension of the van der Waals equation of state , 2010 .

[44]  P. Tabeling,et al.  Determining phase diagrams of gas-liquid systems using a microfluidic PVT. , 2012, Lab on a chip.

[45]  Raymond Joseph Ambrose,et al.  Multi-component sorbed phase considerations for Shale Gas-in-place Calculations , 2011 .

[46]  K. Higashitani,et al.  Triple point of Lennard-Jones fluid in slit nanopore: solidification of critical condensate. , 2004, Journal of Chemical Physics.

[47]  Russell T. Johns,et al.  Effect of Capillary Pressure on Fluid Density and Phase Behavior in Tight Rocks and Shales , 2012 .

[48]  D. Thomson,et al.  Imaging alkane layers at the liquid/graphite interface with the scanning tunneling microscope , 1990 .

[49]  Hideki Tanaka,et al.  Phase equilibria and interfacial tension of fluids confined in narrow pores. , 2007, The Journal of chemical physics.

[50]  Abbas Firoozabadi,et al.  Thermodynamic Modeling of Phase Behavior in Shale Media , 2016 .

[51]  I. Langmuir.  THE ADSORPTION OF GASES ON PLANE SURFACES OF GLASS, MICA AND PLATINUM. , 1918 .

[52]  John C. Calhoun,et al.  Visual Examinations of Fluid Behavior in Porous Media - Part I , 1952 .

[53]  S. Sandler,et al.  Thermodynamic modeling of confined fluids using an extension of the generalized van der Waals theory , 2010 .

[54]  Zhangxin Chen,et al.  Phase Equilibria of Confined Fluids in Nanopores of Tight and Shale Rocks Considering the Effect of Capillary Pressure and Adsorption Film , 2016 .

[55]  Shahnawaz H. Molla,et al.  Equilibrium gas-oil ratio measurements using a microfluidic technique. , 2013, Lab on a chip.

[56]  Deniz Ertas,et al.  Petroleum Expulsion Part 1. Theory of Kerogen Swelling in Multicomponent Solvents , 2006 .

[57]  Mohammad Piri,et al.  Equation-of-state modeling of confined-fluid phase equilibria in nanopores , 2015 .

[58]  Guo-qing Tang,et al.  A Visual Micro-Model Study: The Mechanism of Water Alternative Gas Displacement in Porous Media , 2004 .

[59]  Xiaolong Yin,et al.  Direct Observation of the Impact of Nanopore Confinement on Petroleum Gas Condensation , 2015 .

[60]  Zhangxin Chen,et al.  Measurement of gas storage processes in shale and of the molecular diffusion coefficient in kerogen , 2014 .

[61]  R. Lenormand,et al.  Mechanisms of the displacement of one fluid by another in a network of capillary ducts , 1983, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

[62]  Ali Danesh,et al.  Comparative study of cubic equations of state for predicting phase behaviour and volumetric properties of injection gas-reservoir oil systems , 1991 .