Investigation on Imbibition Recovery Characteristics in Jimusar Shale Oil and White Mineral Oil by NMR

Dunqing Liu (), Chengzhi Jia and Keji Chen
Additional contact information
Dunqing Liu: Faculty of Petroleum, China University of Petroleum (Beijing) at Karamay, Karamay 834000, China
Chengzhi Jia: Faculty of Petroleum, China University of Petroleum (Beijing) at Karamay, Karamay 834000, China
Keji Chen: Faculty of Petroleum, China University of Petroleum (Beijing) at Karamay, Karamay 834000, China

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 15, 1-20

Abstract: Recovering oil by fracturing fluid imbibition has demonstrated significant potential for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in tight oil reservoirs. White mineral oil (WMO), kerosene, or saturated alkanes with matched apparent viscosity have been widely used as “crude oil” to investigate imbibition mechanisms in light shale oil or tight oil. However, the representativeness of these simulated oils for low-maturity crude oils with higher viscosity and greater content of resins and asphaltenes requires further research. In this study, imbibition experiments were conducted and T 2 and T 1 – T 2 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra were adopted to investigate the oil recovery characteristics among resin–asphaltene-rich Jimusar shale oil and two WMOs. The overall imbibition recovery rates, pore scale recovery characteristics, mobility variations among oils with different occurrence states, as well as key factors influencing imbibition efficiency were analyzed. The results show the following: (1) WMO, kerosene, or alkanes with matched apparent viscosity may not comprehensively replicate the imbibition behavior of resin–asphaltene-rich crude oils. These simplified systems fail to capture the pore-scale occurrence characteristics of resins/asphaltenes, their influence on pore wettability alteration, and may consequently overestimate the intrinsic imbibition displacement efficiency in reservoir formations. (2) Surfactant optimization must holistically address the intrinsic coupling between interfacial tension reduction, wettability modification, and pore-scale crude oil mobilization mechanisms. The alteration of overall wettability exhibits higher priority over interfacial tension in governing displacement dynamics. (3) Imbibition displacement exhibits selective mobilization characteristics for oil phases in pores. Specifically, when the oil phase contains complex hydrocarbon components, lighter fractions in larger pores are preferentially mobilized; when the oil composition is homogeneous, oil in smaller pores is mobilized first.

Keywords: shale oil; imbibition displacement; 2-D NMR; Jimusar shale oil (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: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/15/4111/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/15/4111/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:15:p:4111-:d:1716360

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().