| Citation: |
Lei Wang, Li-juan Gu, Hai-long Lu, 2020. Sediment permeability change on natural gas hydrate dissociation induced by depressurization, China Geology, 3, 221-229. doi: 10.31035/cg2020039
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Sediment permeability change on natural gas hydrate dissociation induced by depressurization
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Abstract
The permeability of a natural gas hydrate reservoir is a critical parameter associated with gas hydrate production. Upon producing gas from a hydrate reservoir via depressurization, the permeability of sediments changes in two ways with hydrate dissociation, increasing with more pore space released from hydrate and decreasing due to pore compression by stronger effective stress related to depressurization. In order to study the evolution of sediment permeability during the production process with the depressurization method, an improved pore network model (PNM) method is developed to establish the permeability change model. In this model, permeability change induced by hydrate dissociation is investigated under hydrate occurrence morphology of pore filling and grain coating. The results obtained show that hydrate occurrence in sediment pore is with significant influence on permeability change. Within a reasonable degree of pore compression in field trial, the effect of pore space release on the reservoir permeability is greater than that of pore compression. The permeability of hydrate containing sediments keeps increasing in the course of gas production, no matter with what hydrate occurrence in sediment pore.
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References
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Lei Wang, Li-juan Gu, Hai-long Lu, 2020. Sediment permeability change on natural gas hydrate dissociation induced by depressurization, China Geology, 3, 221-229. doi: 10.31035/cg2020039
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Figure 1.
Schematic diagram of the pore network model. a–the nodes and the conduit (black dashed line) connecting adjacent nodes; b–simplified model of the conduit. Pore space in white, and grain particle in grey.
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Figure 2.
Demonstration of the hydrate dissociation under morphology of pore filling and grain coating. a–the definitions of
${H}_{inner} $ ,${H}_{pore} $ ,${H}_{throat} $ ; b–hydrate dissociation under hydrate morphology of pore filling; c–hydrate dissociation under hydrate morphology of grain coating. Pore space in white, grain particle in grey, hydrate cluster in blue and hydrate dissociation direction represented by blue arrow. -
Figure 3.
The pore-throat-pore conduit and the simplified conduit under different hydrate occurrence morphology. (Hydrate: blue; Pore space: white; Sediment grain: grey). a–the pore-throat-pore conduit with grain coating hydrates (Zone 1 and 3: half pore; Zone 2: throat); b–the pore-throat-pore conduit with pore filling hydrates (Zone 1 and 5: annular zones of half-pores; Zone 2 and 4: cylindrical zones of half-pores; Zone 3: throat); c–the simplified conduit of a; d–the simplified conduit of b.
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Figure 4.
The pore network built from the hydrate-bearing sediments of the Shenhu area in South China sea, in which balls with different colors correspond to pores with different sizes and for better visualization, throats are not shown. The dimension of the pore network is 50×50×50 (non-dimensional).
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Figure 5.
Schematic diagram of the formation fluid extraction method.
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Figure 6.
Hydrate saturation (a) and sample length (b) variation with hydrate dimensional parameters in the process of producing gas from hydrate via depressurization method.
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Figure 7.
The effect of compressional degree on porosity and permeability of the hydrate-bearing sediments under hydrate morphology of pore filling. a–the relationship between sediment porosity and hydrate dimensional parameter with (solid line) and without (dotted line) considering hydrate dissociation effect; b–the relationship between sediment permeability and hydrate saturation with (solid line) and without (dotted line) considering hydrate dissociation effect.
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Figure 8.
The effect of compressional degree on porosity and permeability of the hydrate-bearing sediments in hydrate morphlolgy of grain coating. a–the relationship between sediment porosity and hydrate dimensional parameter with (solid line) and without (dotted line) considering hydrate dissociation effect; b–the relationship between sediment permeability and hydrate saturation with (solid line) and without (dotted line) considering hydrate dissociation effect.