Permeability Modeling of Pore Shapes, Compaction, Sorption, and Molecular Diffusivity in Unconventional Reservoirs

Shale and ultratight gas reservoirs are multiscale, containing organic matter (OM) and inorganic minerals in multiple pore compartments of different pore shapes and scales. Selecting a suitable model to describe the multiscale transport mechanisms requires a minimum understanding of the inherent pore shape, OM content, typical pore size, and inherent flow regime. Interestingly, during gas production and associated pressure depletion, some mechanisms, such as pore compressibility, pore diffusion, and diffusion of sorbed gas molecules, become significant at lower pressure. In this study, multiscale and multiphysics permeability models are introduced that couple the effects of poroelasticity (especially in slit-shaped pores with <1.0 aspect ratio) and sorbed gas diffusion, Fick diffusion, transition diffusion, or Knudsen diffusion, depending on the pore structural properties at multiscale for shale and ultratight gas applications. Shale here refers to organic-rich low-permeability rock with >1–2 wt% OM, while ultratight gas has negligible organic content with <1.0 wt%. These experimentally and computationally validated models could be combined with Gaussian pressure transient solutions to effectively understand the uncertainty in multiphysics gas permeability in addition to the hydraulic and natural fracture parameters for large-scale flow simulation of hydraulically fractured unconventional reservoirs.