Mass Transport and Exchange Inside Tight Matrix-Fracture Systems During CO2 Huff-n-Puff and Flooding Processes

Abstract The potential of CO2 injection in stimulating tight oil recovery after primary production has been extensively demonstrated previously. However, the processes of mass transport and exchange inside dual-permeability matrix-facture system driven by CO2 remain unclear. To improve our understanding and supplement the existing knowledge, three types of matrix-fracture models were designed and employed to mimic CO2 injection processes (huff-n-puff and flooding modes), named fully open fracture (FOF), partially open fracture (POF), and crossed open fracture (COF) models, respectively. CO2 huff-n-puff and flooding experiments were conducted on these three models to observe the dynamics of pressure and oil recovery factor. Core-scale models were built up by history-matching the oil recovery dynamics through modifying the relative permeability curves based on Corey correlations. The mass transport and exchange processes with the proceeding of CO2 injection were delineated. The results showed that either CO2 huff-n-puff or CO2 flooding was capable of extracting the oil from tight matrix substantially but the increase in oil recovery factor became insignificant with the increase in cycle number or injection time. The oil resided in the proximity of injector, fracture and producer were primarily recovered during CO2 flooding. In the FOF and COF models, the matrix oil near the injector and producer was mainly mobilized. As for CO2 huff-n-puff, the oil saturation of the three models was reduced uniformly throughout the cores with cycles. The high sweep efficiency of CO2 largely mobilized the oil near the injector. It can be generally concluded that injecting CO2 by huff-n-puff protocol might be more beneficial than flooding mode for unconventionals. The results of this paper can provide insights into the oil recovery dynamics and mass transport and exchange induced by CO2 injection in tight reservoirs.