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Analytical analysis of gas diffusion into non-circular pores of shale organic matter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2017

Mehran Mehrabi ,
Farzam Javadpour Open the ORCID record for Farzam Javadpour [Opens in a new window]  and
Kamy Sepehrnoori
Mehran Mehrabi
Affiliation:
Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, University Station, Austin, TX 78712, USA
Farzam Javadpour*
Affiliation:
Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, University Station, Box X, Austin, TX 78713, USA
Kamy Sepehrnoori
Affiliation:
Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, University Station, Austin, TX 78712, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

The total of the gas in shale gas reservoirs is sourced from a combination of free, adsorbed and dissolved/diffused gas. The mechanisms of production of free and adsorbed gas have been studied by numerous researchers. In contrast, the evolution of the dissolved gas and its contribution to the total gas production is not well understood. In this study we model the effect of pore micro-structure in organic matter (OM) on the rate of gas production in shale reservoirs. In this regard, first, we solve the gas-in-solid diffusion equation over a general doubly connected spatial domain with external Neumann and internal Dirichlet boundary conditions. The obtained solution is applied systematically to multi-pore porous OM domains and then the effect of pore morphology on the rate of gas production is studied. Our model results show that pore geometry has a slight effect on the gas diffusion process, while total organic carbon, and OM porosity, pore size distribution and specific surface area, are dominant parameters. An abundance of very small pores in OM tremendously increases the diffuse gas contribution in the total gas reserve and production.

JFM classification

Mathematical Foundations: Computational methods Geophysical and Geological Flows: Geophysical and Geological Flows Low-Reynolds-number flows: Porous media
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 819 , 25 May 2017 , pp. 656 - 677
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Copyright
© 2017 Cambridge University Press 

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