Analysis and Calculation of Threshold Pressure Gradient Based on Capillary Bundle
Authors: Ren Shuangshuang , Shen Fei , Yang Shenglai , Zhang Xiangyang , Luo Hongwu , Feng Chaomin 
Published: May 2021

Oilfield water injection is one of the important means to supplement energy to the formation and enhance oil recovery in the process of oilfield development. The level of water injection technology determines the effect of oilfield development and also determines the length of oilfield development life. Research on seepage law of water injection development in low-permeability reservoir is the basis and important technical means of low-permeability reservoir development, and the key point of seepage law is to analyze the starting pressure gradient law. In previous studies, either static test or dynamic experimental value is used, so the error of pseudo starting pressure gradient derived from experimental value is too large, which makes people expand the starting pressure value in low-permeability reservoir in practical engineering application, and the starting pressure gradient obtained from laboratory test cannot be applied in actual reservoir. To accurately calculate the threshold pressure gradient for low-permeability reservoirs, the threshold permeability is proposed through the study of the seepage law and laboratory experiments. It is recognized that the threshold pressure gradient and the threshold permeability had been changing during the seepage. Through steady-state “flow rate-pressure difference” displacement experiment, with natural cores from a low-permeability reservoir, based on a capillary bundle model, the method for calculating the gradient is innovatively proposed. The experimental data show that the whole low-permeability seepage flow is nonlinear, divided into three stages according to the physical stages with obvious changes. Through processing and analyzing of the experimental results, first, it is showed that both threshold pressure gradient and threshold permeability increase with the rise of flow rate and the increasing amplitude is gradually decreasing. Second, the study proposes the permeability is the main controlling reason of the threshold pressure gradient, and the flow velocity is an important reason. Third, we obtain the formulas of the minimum threshold pressure gradient, the threshold pressure gradient, and the corresponding threshold permeability of different cores and the power function relationship between the threshold pressure gradient and the core permeability is obtained. And further, the one-dimensional experimental results are applied to the radial fluid flow, and the recognition that the threshold pressure gradient decreases with increasing distance and the ratio of the threshold pressure to the total displacement pressure difference are obtained. The ratio of starting pressure to total pressure drop is about 0.5, and the higher the permeability is, the lower the ratio is lower under 0.5. These findings significantly help in understanding how to effectively develop low-permeability reservoir by water injection. Through the dynamic macro experiment and microcapillary bundle principle, the experiment can be divided into several sections for analysis, which can be more accurate. The minimum start-up pressure gradient can not only guide the later development of the oilfield, but also enrich the theoretical study of non-Darcy low-velocity seepage. At the same time, the law of flow velocity and start-up pressure gradient indirectly proves the boundary layer theory of the generation mechanism of start-up pressure gradient and supports and guides the effective development of various development methods of low-permeability reservoir.