Experimental study on the effect of hydrate reformation on gas permeability of marine sediments

Abstract

Permeability is a crucial parameter determining methane gas recovery. Hydrate reformation has a significant impact on reservoir permeability during methane hydrate (MH) exploitation and it is often ignored. In this paper, the effect of hydrate reformation on gas permeability was investigated by remolded cores with different hydrate saturations and effective stresses. The results show that hydrate reformation exacerbates the heterogeneous distribution and reduces the reservoir permeability. The permeability damage rate (PDR) of hydrate reformation is greater than the hydrate first formation owing to the inhomogeneity of water caused by hydrate decomposition. When hydrate saturation is increased from 22.26% to 40.44%, the PDR range caused by hydrate formation varies from 19.89% to 98.02%. In addition, the permeability after hydrate decomposition decreases with increasing effective stress. When the effective stress is absent or small, the permeability after secondary decomposition is lower than the first decomposition at the same hydrate saturation. However, the opposite is true when the effective stress is reached 3 MPa. Due to the memory effect of MH in marine sediments, the hydrate reformation induction time is shorter and the reformation rate is faster. However, the gas consumption of the hydrate reformation is less than the first, causing lower hydrate saturation. This work supports the exploitation of gas hydrate and numerical simulation studies in marine sediments.