Study on Phase Behavior of CO2/Hydrocarbons in Shale Reservoirs Considering Sieving Effect and Capillary Pressure

The phase behavior of fluid is essential for predicting ultimate oil recovery and determining optimal production parameters. The pore size in shale porous media is nanopore, which causes different phase behaviors of fluid in unconventional reservoirs. Nanopores in shale media can be regard as semipermeable membrane to filter heavy components (sieving effect) in shale oil, which leads to the different distributions of fluid components and different phase behaviors. In addition, the phase behavior of fluid in nanopores can be significantly altered by large capillary pressure. In this paper, the phase behavior of fluid in shale reservoirs is investigated by a new two-phase flash algorithm considering sieving effect and capillary pressure. Firstly, membrane efficiency and capillary pressure are introduced to establish a thermodynamic equilibrium model that is solved by Rachford–Rice flash calculation and Newton–Raphson method. The capillary pressures in different pore sizes are calculated by the Young–Laplace equation. Then, the influences of sieving effect and capillary pressure on phase behavior are analyzed. The results indicate that capillary pressure can suppress the bubble point pressure of fluid in nanopores. The distributions of fluid components are different in various parts of shale media. In the unfiltered part, density and viscosity of fluid are higher. Finally, it is found that the membrane efficiency can be improved by CO₂ injection. The minimum miscibility pressure for shale oil–CO₂ system is also studied. The developed model provides a better understanding of the phase behavior of fluid in shale oil reservoirs.