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Advanced Technologies for Exploitation of Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources

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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "H: Geo-Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 10355

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Wai Li

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Guest Editor

School of Engineering, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Perth, WA 6009, Australia
Interests: coalbed methane; drilling fluids; sand; casing; well cementing; shale gas; unconventional oil and gas; hydraulic fracking; numerical simulation; transport in porous media

Prof. Dr. Fangtian Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Mines, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
Interests: underground longwall mining; mining-induced strata movement control; green mining technology; mining-induced environment sustainability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Lidong Mi

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Guest Editor

Sinopec Petroleum Exploration & Production Research Institute, Beijing, China
Interests: wellbore stability; reservoir engineering; numerical simulation; underground gas storage; big data; artificial intelligence

Dr. Meng Meng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA
Interests: wellbore stability; wellbore integrity; experimental geomechanics; poroelasticity modeling; carbon sequestration; machine learning

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit papers to the journal Energies for the Special Issue “Advanced Technologies for Exploitation of Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources”. The Special Issue will report on the most advanced techniques and scientific findings for boosting the development of technological innovation and enhancing the understanding for exploiting geo-energy and geo-resources. It is envisioned that this Special Issue will serve as a rapid and attractive channel for exchange regarding the academic frontiers in different hot topics related to geo-energy and geo-resources.

Extraction and exploitation of geo-energy and geo-resources are being confronted with unprecedented challenges and opportunities. The increasingly restrictive environmental regulations and climbing operational costs are forcing the industry to seek new approaches toward meeting government requirements and improving cost-efficiency. On the other hand, the emerging theories and technologies, such as high-performance computation, novel materials, sophisticated instruments, artificial intelligence/big data, and environmentally friendly/green techniques, provide infinite possibilities for solving various problems in this field. This issue will report on the newest valuable perspectives and findings to update the existing knowledge system for optimizing the exploitation of geo-energy and geo-resources.

Potential topics of interest include but are not limited to:

Advanced theories and technologies in unconventional oil and gas extraction;
Novel technologies in modelling and simulation for exploitation of coal, petroleum, and geothermal energy;
New theories and technologies in well construction;
Advanced methods for characterizing reservoir damage and the techniques for enhancing resource/energy recovery;
Novel technologies in in situ mining;
Fundamentals and technologies in multiple resources/energies co-mining;
Health, safety, environment, and sustainability in exploitation of geo-energy and geo-resources;
Thermal–hydraulic–mechanical–chemical coupling aspects in the exploitation of geo-energy and geo-resources;
Applications of machine learning and data science in revealing new insights in geo-energy and geo-resources;
Development of novel instruments and test methods related to the exploitation of geo-energy and geo-resources.

Dr. Wai Li
Prof. Dr. Fangtian Wang
Dr. Lidong Mi
Dr. Meng Meng
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

unconventional resources
geothermal energy
coal mining
coalbed methane
shale gas
shale oil
gas hydrate
hot dry rock
hydraulic fracturing
in situ mining
wellbore stability
well integrity
environmentally friendly
machine learning
data-driven models
deep learning
enhanced geothermal system
waste management

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 5496 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Physical Simulation Test of Underground Coal Gasification Cavity Evolution in the Horizontal Segment of U-Shaped Well

by Yufeng Zhao, Zhen Dong, Yanpeng Chen, Hao Chen, Shanshan Chen, Mengyuan Zhang, Junjie Xue, Xinggang Wang and Lixin Jiao

Energies 2023, 16(8), 3452; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16083452 - 14 Apr 2023

Viewed by 927

Abstract

A key point in the underground coal gasification process is the cavity evolution in the horizontal segment. The morphological evolution law of the gasification cavity has not been clarified, which is the bottleneck restricting the analysis of its controllability. In this paper, a physical simulation system for cavity generation was developed, and the cavity evolution in a targeted coal seam with overburden pressure was duplicated in the laboratory. A set of temperature field synchronous monitoring devices was developed to realize temperature sampling within a cavity and the surrounding rock. By analyzing the relationship between the overall temperature distribution pattern and the gasification agent injection condition, the morphological propagation law of the cavity is verified to be water drop-shaped, and influencing factors including the injection flow rate and the gasification agent component ratio are investigated. The axial length and volume of the cavity increase with an increasing injection flow rate. Higher oxygen content results in increased size in all dimensions. The research results provide theoretical support and reference for applying controlled cavity formation in the horizontal segment of U-shaped wells. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Technologies for Exploitation of Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources)

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16 pages, 4632 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study on Geothermal Genesis Mechanism and Model in the Western Margin of Ordos Basin

by Baizhou An, Zhaofa Zeng, Boyang Sun, Yadong Bai, Zhaotao Yan, Jianwei Zhao and Jiahe Yan

Energies 2023, 16(4), 1784; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16041784 - 10 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1122

Abstract

Among so many fault basins around Ordos presenting good geothermal background, Yinchuan Plain is the key development and protection area of the Ecological and Economic Belt along the Yellow River in Ningxia and Yinchuan Metropolitan Area. The study of geothermal resources in this region is of great significance to the sustainable economic development of Yinchuan Plain. Most scholars suggested that Yinchuan Plain geothermal resources are low-to-medium temperature geothermal resources and have high value in terms of development and utilization due to their large reserves, good water quality conditions, and wide distribution. However, there is much controversy over the geothermal mechanism of this region. As an effective means to study geothermal mechanism, geophysical methods can be used to study regional basement uplift and structural distribution characteristics. Based on the discussion of regional geothermal geology background, this paper studies the distribution rules of Moho and Curie depths in the region by applying different geophysical data. The results show that the western margin of Yinchuan Plain is obviously uplifted. As inferred from the epicentral distribution of Yinchuan Plain section, there is a significant difference of the seismic bottom interface on the east and west sides of the Yellow River fault in Yinchuan Plain. The three-dimensional gravity inversion confirms basement uplift in this region. By referring to results obtained by the inversion of gravity and magnetic data and deep seismic exploration, the paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the regional geothermal geology conditions and proposes a geothermal conceptual model of Yinchuan Plain. The heat source comes from the earth heat flow and migrates to the thermal reservoir through the fault or fissure convection. The deep-large active faults provide a channel for deep heat flow to the shallow part, and the thermal fluid accumulates in the uplift area to form the high geothermal anomaly area. There should be two large-scale geological activities in the geotropics around Ordos. One is the basement uplift of the basins around Ordos platform, which provide the heat source. The other is the uplift of Ordos, which places the surrounding basin in an extensional environment and provides a channel for the heat source upwelling. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Technologies for Exploitation of Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources)

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19 pages, 4811 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Numerical Simulation Study of Huff-n-Puff Hydrocarbon Gas Injection Parameters for Enhanced Shale Oil Recovery

by Alsu Garipova, Elena Mukhina, Alexander Cheremisin, Margarita Spivakova, Anton Kasyanenko and Alexey Cheremisin

Energies 2023, 16(3), 1555; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16031555 - 03 Feb 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1486

Abstract

Gas injection has already proven to be an efficient shale oil recovery method successfully tested all around the world. However, gas-enhanced oil recovery methods have never been implemented or tested for the greatest Siberian shale oil formation yet. This article proposes numerical simulation of a hydrocarbon gas injection process into a horizontal well with multiple hydraulic fractures perforating Bazhenov shale oil formation in Western Siberia characterized by ultra-low permeability. A complex field-scale numerical study of gas injection for such a formation has never been performed before and is presented for the first time in our work. The hydrodynamic compositional simulation was performed utilizing a commercial simulator. A sensitivity study for different operating parameters including cycle times, bottom-hole pressures for the production and injection period, and injected gas composition was performed after the model was history matched with the available production data. Some uncertain reservoir properties such as relative permeability curves were also sensitized upon. Two different ways of accounting for multiple hydraulic fractures in the simulation model are presented and the simulation results from both models are compared and discussed. Eventually, huff-n-puff injection of a hydrocarbon gas resulted in a 34–117% increase in oil recovery depending on the fracture model. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Technologies for Exploitation of Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources)

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17 pages, 4370 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Permeability and Mechanical Response of Granite after Thermal and CO₂ Bearing Fluid Hydro-Chemical Stimulation

by Rong-Chen Tong, He-Juan Liu, Yu-Jia Song, Li-Huan Xie and Sheng-Nan Ban

Energies 2022, 15(21), 8280; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15218280 - 05 Nov 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1136

Abstract

The large scale extraction of geothermal energy can reduce CO₂ emissions. For hot dry rocks, the key to successful utilization depends on the efficiency of reservoir reconstruction. The chemical and thermal stimulation methods are always used in geothermal reservoir reconstruction except in hydraulic fracturing with high fluid injection pressure, which is believed to reduce the seismic hazard by applying before the high-pressure hydraulic fracturing stimulation. However, at the laboratory scale, there are still very limited experimental studies illustrating the combined effects of chemical and thermal stimulation on the permeability and mechanical properties of granite, which is regarded as the main type of hot dry rock. In this paper, comparative stimulation experiments were carried out, including thermal/cold stimulation, CO₂ bearing solution hydro-chemical stimulation, combined thermal and CO₂ bearing fluid stimulation. By means of nuclear magnetic resonance analysis, permeability test and triaxial compression test, the changes of the micro-structure, permeability and mechanical properties of granite under various stimulation conditions were analyzed. The experimental results show that, compared with the single thermal stimulation and CO₂ bearing fluid hydro-chemical stimulation, the superposition effect of thermal and CO₂ bearing fluid hydro-chemical stimulation can increase the number of micro-fractures in granite more effectively, thus increasing the permeability, while the elastic modulus and compressive strength decrease. Moreover, the cooling mode on the granite also has a certain influence on the stimulation effect. After water-cooling on the heated granite (300 °C), combined with the CO₂ bearing fluid stimulation (240 °C, 20 MPa), the permeability of granite is the highest, increasing by 17 times that of the initial state, and the porosity also increases by 144.4%, while the elastic modulus and compressive strength decrease by 14.3% and 18.4%, respectively. This implies that the deterioration of mechanical properties due to the micro-fractures increased by the thermal and chemical stimulation can enhance the fluid conductivity and heat extraction of granite. The methods in this paper can provide a reference for the combined application of thermal and chemical stimulation technology in artificial reservoir reconstruction of hot dry rocks. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Technologies for Exploitation of Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources)

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Review

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28 pages, 1801 KiB

Open AccessReview

Tight and Shale Oil Exploration: A Review of the Global Experience and a Case of West Siberia

by Desmond Batsa Dorhjie, Elena Mukhina, Anton Kasyanenko and Alexey Cheremisin

Energies 2023, 16(18), 6475; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16186475 - 07 Sep 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1224

Abstract

Shale and tight oil reservoirs, with horizontal wells and hydraulic fractures, typically have a recovery ratio of around 10%. The exploration of tight oil and shale in North America has proven economically viable, thanks to advancements, such as horizontal wells, hydraulic fracturing, and other enhanced oil recovery techniques. Taking inspiration from the global experience (the North American shale experience), the exploration and development of the West Siberian tight and shale reserves was more focused on the reported best practices of the exploration of North American shale. In this study, the advance in the specific areas of shale and tight oil exploration was considered, with more emphasis placed on the progress in the exploration of West Siberian shales. According to the review literature, thermal enhanced recovery methods capable of converting organic matter into hydrocarbons were studied more than other methods of enhanced oil recovery. Aligned with global trends, there has been a growing focus on research aiming to integrate data-driven approaches and pore-scale simulations to enhance recovery from tight and shale formations. Multiple pilot studies have showcased promising prospects for implementing multistage hydraulic fracturing. Nevertheless, there are limited pilot studies dedicated to enhanced oil recovery methods for West Siberian shale. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Technologies for Exploitation of Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources)

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34 pages, 3356 KiB

Open AccessReview

An Overview of Geological CO₂ Sequestration in Oil and Gas Reservoirs

by Aysylu Askarova, Aliya Mukhametdinova, Strahinja Markovic, Galiya Khayrullina, Pavel Afanasev, Evgeny Popov and Elena Mukhina

Energies 2023, 16(6), 2821; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16062821 - 17 Mar 2023

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3023

Abstract

A tremendous amount of fossil fuel is utilized to meet the rising trend in the world’s energy demand, leading to the rising level of CO₂ in the atmosphere and ultimately contributing to the greenhouse effect. Numerous CO₂ mitigation strategies have been used to reverse this upward trend since large-scale decarbonization is still impractical. For multiple reasons, one of the optimal and available solutions is the usage of old depleted oil and gas reservoirs as objects for prospective CO₂ utilization. The methods used in CO₂ underground storage are similar to those used in oil exploration and production. However, the process of CO₂ storage requires detailed studies conducted experimentally and numerically. The main goal of this paper is to present an overview of the existing laboratory studies, engineering and modeling practices, and sample case studies related to the CCS in oil and gas reservoirs. The paper covers geological CO₂ storage technologies and discusses knowledge gaps and potential problems. We attempt to define the key control parameters and propose best practices in published experimental and numerical studies. Analysis of laboratory experiments shows the applicability of the selected reservoirs focusing on trapping mechanisms specific to oil and gas reservoirs only. The current work reports risk control and existing approaches to numerical modeling of CO₂ storage. We also provide updates on completed and ongoing CCS in oil and gas reservoir field projects and pilots worldwide. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Technologies for Exploitation of Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources)

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