Influence of overburden pressure on imbibition behavior in tight sandstones using nuclear magnetic resonance technique

Abstract

Imbibition under overburden pressure can simulate the imbibition behavior in reservoir conditions during hydraulic fracturing, about which the mechanism is still unclear. This study investigated the imbibition with overburden pressure using a nuclear magnetic resonance displacement design. The main contribution of this study is that the initial imbibition rate under confining pressure can reflect the pore connectivity of reservoirs under overburden pressure and a method for appraising the pore connectivity under confining pressure was established. The tight sandstone samples were collected from the Upper Paleozoic Taiyuan and Shihezi Formations in Ordos Basin. The Taiyuan Formation presents apparent double-peak structure from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra, and liquid fills into small pore preferentially as a whole. When the imbibition time is on a square root scale, the cumulative imbibition height at the initial imbibition period is not stable, which deviates from the linear principle, and the initial imbibition rate ranges from 0.077 to 0.1145. The Shihezi Formation shows a dominant peak structure from NMR spectra, and the liquid has no obvious filling order as a whole. When the imbibition time is on a square root scale, the cumulative imbibition height at the initial imbibition period also deviates from the linear principle, and the initial imbibition rate ranges from 0.0641 to 0.1619.