Publication

Gas shale water imbibition tests with controlled suction technique

Abstract

Water loss during flowback operations represents one of the main challenges related to the use of hydraulic stimulation to exploit shale gas resources. About 20% of the injected fracturing fluids are usually recovered after stimulation. Fluid imbibition is expected to be one of the main mechanisms responsible for the water uptake of shale gas reservoirs. Imbibition tests are typically performed to analyse this issue. This study presents a new experimental methodology based on the control of total suction to quantify the impact of the swelling response of gas shales on the water uptake during imbibition processes. The obtained results demonstrate that a precise quantification of the gas shale water uptake cannot be performed neglecting the volumetric behaviour and the presence of the mechanical stress during the imbibition process. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.

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Related concepts (23)
Shale gas
Shale gas is an unconventional natural gas that is found trapped within shale formations. Since the 1990s a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has made large volumes of shale gas more economical to produce, and some analysts expect that shale gas will greatly expand worldwide energy supply. Shale gas has become an increasingly important source of natural gas in the United States since the start of this century, and interest has spread to potential gas shales in the rest of the world.
Oil shale
Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general composition of oil shales constitutes inorganic substance and bitumens. Based on their deposition environment, oil shales are classified as marine, lacustrine and terrestrial oil shales. Oil shales differ from oil-bearing shales, shale deposits that contain petroleum (tight oil) that is sometimes produced from drilled wells.
Fracking
Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, fracing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "fracking fluid" (primarily water, containing sand or other proppants suspended with the aid of thickening agents) into a wellbore to create cracks in the deep-rock formations through which natural gas, petroleum, and brine will flow more freely.
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