Evaluation About Adsorption Gas and Free Gas Content Inside Shale Matrix under a Wide Range of Atmosphere Conditions

Abstract

Much attention has been attracted by the successful development of shale gas reservoir in recent decades. Correspondingly, research aspects of shale gas reservoirs become more and more heat among the academic community, especially in the fields of nanoscale gas transport mechanisms as well as the storage modes. Fascinated by the craft interactions exerted by organic or inorganic shale surface, drastic discrepancy takes place in terms of the gas behavior inside the nanoscale dimension and that in conventional dimension. It is crucial to figure out the exact influence on shale gas recovery and overall production efficiency due to the above large difference. Notably, this paper is designed to comprehensively explore the methane storage behavior in shale nanopores, expecting to provide the direct relationship between adsorption gas and free gas content under various environmental conditions. Also, a novel and simple prediction method with regard to ultimate gas recovery is proposed, which is connected to the pore size distribution and formation pressure. First of all, the gas storage modes in a single nanopore with defined pore size are analyzed seriously. As a result, the evaluation model is constructed for adsorption gas and free gas content in a single nanopore. After that, an upscaling method is applied to extend the adaptiability of the model from single nanopore to nanoporous modia. Finally, sensitivity factor analysis work is performed and a recovery prediction methodology is developed. Results suggest that the adsorption gas content will be a larger contribution to total gas content when it comes to small pore radius and low formation pressure. In contrast, free gas content will increase with the increasing pressure and pore size. More importantly, pore size distribution characteristic has a key impact on gas storage modes and ultimate gas recovery. The high proportion of small nanopores plays a detrimental role on gas recovery, resulting in large content of adsorption gas at low pressure, which will not be produced and remain in shale gas reservoirs.