Stochastic model for migration and breakage of detrital and authigenic fines

Bryant Dang-Le; Abolfazl Hashemi; Cuong Nguyen; Grace Loi; Nastaran Khazali; Yutong Yang; Alexander Badalyan; Thomas Russell; Pavel Bedrikovetsky

doi:10.1071/EP23127

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Stochastic model for migration and breakage of detrital and authigenic fines

Bryant Dang-Le ^A , Abolfazl Hashemi ^B , Cuong Nguyen ^A , Grace Loi ^A , Nastaran Khazali ^A , Yutong Yang ^A , Alexander Badalyan ^A , Thomas Russell ^A and Pavel Bedrikovetsky ^A ^*

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A School of Chemical Engineering, University of Adelaide, SA, Australia.

^B School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, University of New South Wales, NSW, Australia.

Bryant Dang-Le is currently a third-year PhD candidate in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Adelaide. He holds a Bachelor in Engineering (Honours) degree. His current research is effect of rock failure on particle detachment in colloidal flow.

Abolfazl Hashemi is currently an Associate Lecturer at the University of New South Wales. He studied Chemical Engineering: Exploitation of Hydrocarbon Resources at the Petroleum University of Technology in Iran between 1998 and 2002. In 2003, he was accepted to the Technical University of Delft as a Master of Science student in Petroleum Engineering. In 2019, he was accepted as a PhD student at the University of Adelaide, where he submitted his thesis in 2023.

Cuong Cao Nguyen is a PhD candidate in the School of Chemical Engineering, University of Adelaide. He received his BEng in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Adelaide.

Grace Ming Yin Loi is a PhD candidate in the School of Chemical Engineering, University of Adelaide. She received her BEng in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Adelaide.

Nastaran Khazali is currently a PhD student at the University of Adelaide. She holds a master’s degree in reservoir engineering and two bachelor’s degrees in petroleum and industrial engineering, all from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic). A coupled background in petroleum and industrial engineering was the main motivation for the pursuit of her bachelor’s and master’s theses in the field of datamining/machine-learning and artificial intelligence and their applications in reservoir engineering. For her PhD thesis, she is working on size-distributed suspension/colloidal flow in porous media.

Yutong Yang is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Chemical Engineering, University of Adelaide. His current research is focusing on the theoretical and experimental study of fluid flow and fines migration in porous media under one-phase and two-phase flow. He received his Bachelor’s (Honours) degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Adelaide.

Dr Alexander Badalyan is currently a Research Fellow at School of Chemical Engineering, University of Adelaide. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Automatic Control from Grozny State Oil Technical University (Grozny, Russian Federation/USSR) and a PhD in Theoretical Fundamentals of Heat Engineering from Azerbaijan State Oil Academy (Baku, Azerbaijan/USSR). His research interests cover suspension flow in porous media, characterisation of porous solids by manometric gas adsorption, application of supercritical and liquid carbon dioxide for extraction of essential oils and development of computer-based systems for real-time process monitoring and control.

Dr Thomas Russell is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Chemical Engineering, University of Adelaide. He received his PhD from the University of Adelaide on the topic of upscaling stochastic processes in porous media during suspension-colloidal flow. Thomas performs research in the area of subsurface flow in porous media, with particular focus on formation damage, colloidal transport and multiphase flow. Applications of his work include injectivity decline during waterflooding, productivity decline in oil/gas wells, and formation damage during carbon dioxide and hydrogen subsurface storage.

Professor Pavel Bedrikovetsky is a Professor of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Adelaide. He authored a seminal book on reservoir engineering and 290 papers in international journals and SPE. His research covers carbon dioxide and hydrogen storage, well injectivity and productivity, formation damage and EOR. He holds an MSc in Applied Mathematics, a PhD in Fluid Mechanics and DSc in Reservoir Engineering, all from Moscow Gubkin Oil-Gas University. Pavel boasts 40 years of industrial experience in Europe, USA, Brazil, Ukraine, Russia and Australia. Pavel was a 2008–2009 and 2016–2017 SPE Distinguished Lecturer. He is an SPE Distinguished Member. Pavel was ranked among the world’s top 2% of scientists by Stanford University (2020).

^* Correspondence to: pavel.bedrikovetski@adelaide.edu.au

Australian Energy Producers Journal 64 66-79 https://doi.org/10.1071/EP23127

Submitted: 15 December 2023 Accepted: 6 February 2024 Published: 16 May 2024

Abstract

Mobilisation of attached particles during flow in rocks occurs in geo-energy processes. Particle mobilisation, their migration through rocks and pore plugging yield significant decline in permeability and well injectivity and productivity. While much is currently known about the underlying mechanisms governing the detachment of detrital particles against attracting electrostatic forces, a critical gap exists in the theoretical understanding of detachment by breakage of widely spread authigenic particles, which naturally grow on rock grains during geological times. Previous works derived micro-scale mechanical equilibrium equations for both detrital and authigenic particles, and the upscaling procedure from particle to pore and core scales for detrital fines. In this paper, for the first time we derive a stochastic model for migration and breakage of authigenic fines and authigenic–detrital mixtures. This allows for core-scale transport modelling based on the particle-scale torque balance. We introduce a novel framework for predictive stochastic detachment modelling by particle–rock bond breakage that integrates the beam theory of elastic particle deformation, strength failure criteria and viscous flow around the attached particle. The analytical expressions for stress maxima and stress diagrams for a single particle allow determining the critical failure stresses, breakage points of the beam and breakage flow velocity. The mathematical model describing lab coreflood includes the maximum retention function for both authigenic and detrital fines. The matching laboratory coreflood data under increasing velocity at micro- and core-scales achieved high matching of the experimental data by the model. High matching validates the upscaling and downscaling procedures derived.

Keywords: authigenic fines, detrital fines, failure criteria, fines migration, formation damage, maximum retention function, particle detachment, strength.

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