Headspace Isotope & Compositional Analysis for Unconventional Resources: Gas in Place, Permeability and Porosity Prediction and Completions Planning

Abstract

Cuttings/cores’ Headspace Isotope and Composition Analysis (HICA) provides an effective way to calculate the nano pore throat size and distributions much like nitrogen and CO2 adsorption BET/BJH analysis, and it could also provide information about the original pore pressure or gas in place. Tight gas and oil storage is different from conventional where a majority of oil and gas are stored in nanometer sized pores (nanopores). Therefore the nanofludics, i.e., nanometer scale capillary sealing and opening in nanopores of tight rocks, plays a key role in overpressure conservation and storage of oil and gas, and also the fracing process involves the opening of the nano pore capillary seals through rock-fluid interactions. The rock-fluid nanofluidics interactions during fracing could also be studied through HICA and the results could help the optimization of fracing designs.