Characterization of Pore Throat Size Distribution in Tight Sandstones with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and High-Pressure Mercury Intrusion

Hongjun Xu, Yiren Fan, Falong Hu, Changxi Li, Jun Yu, Zhichao Liu and Fuyong Wang
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Hongjun Xu: School of Geosciences, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China
Yiren Fan: School of Geosciences, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China
Falong Hu: PetroChina Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, Beijing 100083, China
Changxi Li: PetroChina Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, Beijing 100083, China
Jun Yu: PetroChina Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, Beijing 100083, China
Zhichao Liu: Research Institute of Enhanced Oil Recovery, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Fuyong Wang: Research Institute of Enhanced Oil Recovery, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-17

Abstract: Characterization of pore throat size distribution (PTSD) in tight sandstones is of substantial significance for tight sandstone reservoirs evaluation. High-pressure mercury intrusion (HPMI) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) are the effective methods for characterizing PTSD of reservoirs. NMR T 2 spectra is usually converted to mercury intrusion capillary pressure for PTSD characterization. However, the conversion is challenging in tight sandstones due to tiny pore throat sizes. In this paper, the linear conversion method and the nonlinear conversion method are investigated, and the error minimization method and the least square method are proposed to calculate the conversion coefficients of the linear conversion method and the nonlinear conversion method, respectively. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of these two different conversion methods are discussed and compared with field case study. The research results show that the average linear conversion coefficients of the 20 tight sandstone core plugs collected from Yanchang Formation, Ordos Basin of China is 0.0133 μm/ms; the average nonlinear conversion coefficient is 0.0093 μm/ms and the average nonlinear conversion exponent is 0.725. Although PTSD converted from NMR spectra by the nonlinear conversion method is wider than that obtained from linear conversion method, the nonlinear conversion method can retain the characteristic of bi-modal distribution in PTSD.

Keywords: tight sandstone; HPMI; NMR; pore throat size distribution; capillary pressure; T 2 spectra (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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