Pore Structure and Its Influencing Factors of Shale Oil Reservoir in Jianghan Basin, China

Book excerpt: With the successful development of shale oil and gas, there has been a great deal of concern about shale and its characteristics, especially in characterization technology, genesis, evolution and control factors of shale reservoirs. The pore structure of a shale reservoir is complex, and the nanometer pore is dominant, which can reach more than 80%. Since the size of oil and gas molecules is mainly below 100 nm, hydrocarbon molecules and petroleum asphaltenes can enter into the nano pores completely, but the capillary resistance in the nano pores restricts the free flow of fluid. There is a large viscous force and molecular force between the fluid in the nano pore throat and the surrounding media. The hydrocarbon molecules adhere to the surface of minerals and kerogen in the adsorption state and in the diffusion state. So, the nano pore network controls the occurrence and enrichment of shale oil and gas. The pore structure and porosity evaluation of shale mainly depends on mercury intrusion, gas adsorption, SEM, etc. The micro-nano pore 3D characterization technology, represented by focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM), has become the mainstream trend in shale nano pore analysis technology, which extends the observation scale of shale structure to the nano scale. With the development of shale reservoir description and characterization technology, the accuracy of characterize shale pores has been greatly improved, which provides a precondition for solving the formation, evolution, and oil-gas accumulation mechanism of unconventional reservoir pores.