Noble Gas Tracing of Fluid Transport in Shale Reservoirs

Abstract:

We investigate fluid transport mechanisms in a shale reservoir using natural noble gas tracers. Noble gas tracing is promising due to sensitivity of transport to: pore structure and sizes; phase partitioning between groundwater and liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons; and deformation from hydraulic fracturing and creation of surface area. A time-series of over thirty wellhead fluid samples were collected from two hydraulically-fractured wells with different oil-to-gas ratios, along with production data (i.e., flowrate and pressure). Tracer and production data sets can be combined to infer production flow regimes, to estimate reservoir transport parameters, and to improve forecasts of production decline.

Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.