The Water Retention Curves in THF Hydrate-Bearing Sediments - Experimental Measurement and Pore Scale Simulation

Abstract:

The water retention curve (WRC) of hydrate-bearing sediments is critically important to understand the behaviour of hydrate dissociation for gas production. Most gas hydrates in marine environment have been formed from an aqueous phase (gas-dissolved water). However, the gas hydrate formation from an aqueous phase in a laboratory requires long period due to low gas solubility in water and is also associated with many experimental difficulties such as hydrate dissolution, difficult hydrate saturation control, and dynamic hydrate dissolution and formation. In this study, tetrahydrofuran (THF) is chosen to form THF hydrate because the formation process is faster than gas hydrate formation and hydrate saturation is easy to control. THF hydrate is formed at water-excess condition. Therefore, there is only water in the pore space after a target THF hydrate saturation is obtained. The pore habit of THF hydrate is investigated by visual observation in a transparent micromodel and X-ray computed tomography images; and the water retention curves are obtained under different THF hydrate saturation conditions. Targeted THF hydrate saturations are S_h=0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8. Results shown that at a given water saturation the capillary pressure increases as THF hydrate saturation increases. And the gas entry pressure increases with increasing hydrate saturation. The WRC obtained by experiments is also compared with the results of a pore-network model simulation and Lattice Boltzmann Method. The fitting parameters of van Genuchten equation for different hydrate saturation conditions are suggested for the use as input parameters of reservoir simulators.