Thermal Treatment of Reservoir as One of the Powerful Method of Shale Formation Development in Russia

Abstract

World interest in shale oil has provoked high attention to Russian unconventional resources, to which, the Bazhenov Formation (Western Siberia) primarily belongs. Depletion drive type development of the Bazhenov Formation allows producing only 3% of geological reserves. One of the potential method for increasing oil recovery in the Bazhenov Formation is the thermal treatment, which, according to experts, allows rising oil recovery factor to 30-40%. Laboratory tests are needed to successfully introduce new thermal methods for development shale reservoirs in Russia. These tests would allow scientifically and technically substantiating technological parameters of in-situ pyrolysis. This work is concerned with investigation of high temperatures effects on reservoir properties of Bazhenov Formation rocks. Reservoir properties of the Bazhenov Formation were determined on crushed core by the GRI method. It is shown that, the open porosity and matrix permeability are increased in several times with rising temperature.