Effects of Injection–Production Parameters in Inter-Fracture Gas Injection for Horizontal Wells of the Changqing Yuan 284 Tight Oil Reservoir

Conventional depletion development and waterflooding are often ineffective in tight oil reservoirs because of their ultra-low permeability, complex fracture–matrix architecture, and limited fluid mobility. Although inter-fracture CO2 flooding has demonstrated considerable potential for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), the coupled effects of key operational parameters on reservoir pressure evolution, fracture–matrix mass transfer, and oil mobilization remain inadequately understood. In this study, a multi-component compositional simulation model, constrained by detailed geological characterization and calibrated through production history matching of the Yuan 284 block in the Changqing Oilfield, was developed to systematically evaluate the effects of CO2 injection rate, injection–production time ratio, and shut-in duration on recovery performance and reservoir response. The results show that increasing the CO2 injection rate from 1000 to 50,000 m3/d improves the recovery factor from 40.49% to 49.90%; however, the incremental recovery gain decreases markedly beyond 30,000 m3/d, which is aggravated by enhanced gas channeling through high-conductivity fracture pathways. Analysis of the injection–production time ratio indicates that an optimal ratio of 0.50 provides the best balance between reservoir energy replenishment and oil displacement efficiency, whereas excessively small ratios result in insufficient pressure support and reduced recovery. In contrast, extending the shut-in duration consistently lowers recovery performance by weakening fracture–matrix mass transfer and promoting pressure dissipation, demonstrating that immediate production following injection is more effective than prolonged soaking under the investigated conditions. The optimized operating scheme yields a recovery factor of 48.87%, substantially exceeding the representative waterflooding recovery level of 35.20%. These findings clarify the mechanisms controlling pressure maintenance, CO2 utilization efficiency, and volumetric sweep during inter-fracture asynchronous CO2 flooding, and provide both theoretical insights and practical guidance for the efficient development of ultra-low-permeability fractured tight oil reservoirs.

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Journal
Processes
Published
2026-06-25
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/pr14132075
Primary Topic
Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques
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article
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article

Effects of Injection–Production Parameters in Inter-Fracture Gas Injection for Horizontal Wells of the Changqing Yuan 284 Tight Oil Reservoir

Gengchen Li, Yi Yang, Lingfang Tan, Hui Li et al.
Processes
Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques
article

Effects of Injection–Production Parameters in Inter-Fracture Gas Injection for Horizontal Wells of the Changqing Yuan 284 Tight Oil Reservoir

Gengchen Li, Yi Yang, Lingfang Tan, Hui Li, Jie Yang, Hong Zhu, Rui Shen, Qiwen Zhan, Wei Xiong, Shanfeng Ke
article en

Abstract

Conventional depletion development and waterflooding are often ineffective in tight oil reservoirs because of their ultra-low permeability, complex fracture–matrix architecture, and limited fluid mobility. Although inter-fracture CO2 flooding has demonstrated considerable potential for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), the coupled effects of key operational parameters on reservoir pressure evolution, fracture–matrix mass transfer, and oil mobilization remain inadequately understood. In this study, a multi-component compositional simulation model, constrained by detailed geological characterization and calibrated through production history matching of the Yuan 284 block in the Changqing Oilfield, was developed to systematically evaluate the effects of CO2 injection rate, injection–production time ratio, and shut-in duration on recovery performance and reservoir response. The results show that increasing the CO2 injection rate from 1000 to 50,000 m3/d improves the recovery factor from 40.49% to 49.90%; however, the incremental recovery gain decreases markedly beyond 30,000 m3/d, which is aggravated by enhanced gas channeling through high-conductivity fracture pathways. Analysis of the injection–production time ratio indicates that an optimal ratio of 0.50 provides the best balance between reservoir energy replenishment and oil displacement efficiency, whereas excessively small ratios result in insufficient pressure support and reduced recovery. In contrast, extending the shut-in duration consistently lowers recovery performance by weakening fracture–matrix mass transfer and promoting pressure dissipation, demonstrating that immediate production following injection is more effective than prolonged soaking under the investigated conditions. The optimized operating scheme yields a recovery factor of 48.87%, substantially exceeding the representative waterflooding recovery level of 35.20%. These findings clarify the mechanisms controlling pressure maintenance, CO2 utilization efficiency, and volumetric sweep during inter-fracture asynchronous CO2 flooding, and provide both theoretical insights and practical guidance for the efficient development of ultra-low-permeability fractured tight oil reservoirs.

ProcessesVol. 14(13)
Jiujiang University (CN), China University of Petroleum, Beijing (CN), Institute of Porous Flow and Fluid Mechanics (CN), Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development (CN), Buchang Pharma (China) (CN), Sanya University (CN), China National Petroleum Corporation (China) (CN)
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 8%
Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques
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