Formation damage and improved recovery in kaolinitic high enthalpy gas fields with fabric geological settings

This paper investigates the fines migration and transport in natural gas reservoirs as a function of porous rocks with fabric geological settings. So, an analytical and surface thermodynamic model was developed for high temperature permeable media. Two sets of core flood experiments were conducted under normal (50 °C) and high temperature (150 °C) fluid flow, where the major results revealed that there is an increase in the rock core thermal expansion of 57
and 192 at 50 °C and 150 °C. The rock core underwent a thermal strain to 0.36% and 0.86% under normal and higher temperature conditions. At 50 °C the pressure stabilized to 20 psi and 50 psi was recorded as the peak pressure under 150 °C rock temperature. The fines concentration under higher temperature is significantly higher than the normal rock temperature and yielded maximum up to 77.28 ppm. The rock permeability exhibited a linear and stabilized decline, but at higher temperature new surface energies was created in the rock core and as a result, the reservoir permeability begun to rebound. Microstructural images revealed that the kaolinite clay fine particle under 50 °C has a platelet structure and has multiple straining mechanism. Whereas, under higher temperature the clay fines have transcended to compaction over the rock surface fabrics. Exponential gas recovery of 15% and 25% was observed for both 50 °C and 150 °C cases. In the former case, a linear growth rate to 25% was noted and then gradually it fell to 12.9%. While, in the latter case the gas recovery rate climbed to 33.7% and stabilized, which indicates that the gas recovery rate was monotonous. The experimental and analytical models have been verified using multiple linear regression method and the model's outcome revealed an excellent agreement whose
values were found to be 0.9997 and 0.9995