Data Publication

Intergranular clay films control inelastic deformation in the Groningen gas reservoir: Evidence from split-cylinder deformation tests

Ronald Pijnenburg | Berend Antonie Verberne | Suzanne Hangx | Christopher James Spiers

Utrecht University

(2019)

Descriptions

Production of oil and gas from sandstone reservoirs leads to small elastic and inelastic strains in the reservoir, which may induce surface subsidence and seismicity. While the elastic component is easily described, the inelastic component, and any rate-sensitivity thereof remain poorly understood in the relevant small strain range (≤ 1.0%). To address this, we performed a sequence of five stress/strain-cycling plus strain-marker-imaging experiments on a single split-cylinder sample (porosity 20.4%) of Slochteren sandstone from the seismogenic Groningen gas field. The tests were performed under in-situ conditions of effective confining pressure (40 MPa) and temperature (100°C), exploring increasingly large differential stresses (up to 75 MPa) and/or axial strains (up to 4.8%) in consecutive runs. At the small strains relevant to producing reservoirs (≤ 1.0%), inelastic deformation was largely accommodated by deformation of clay-filled grain contacts. High axial strains (>1.4%) led to pervasive intragranular cracking plus intergranular slip within localized, conjugate bands. Using a simplified sandstone model, we show that the magnitude of inelastic deformation produced in our experiments at small strains (≤ 1.0%) and stresses relevant to the Groningen reservoir can indeed be roughly accounted for by clay film deformation. Thus, inelastic compaction of the Groningen reservoir is expected to be largely governed by clay film deformation. Compaction by this mechanism is shown to be rate-insensitive on production time-scales, and is anticipated to halt when gas production stops. However, creep by other processes cannot be eliminated. Similar, clay-bearing sandstone reservoirs occur widespread globally, implying a wide relevance of our results. The data is provided in a folder with 3 subfolders for 5 experiments/samples. Detailed information about the files in these subfolders as well as information on how the data is processed is given in the explanatory file Pijnenburg-et-al_2019_data-description.docx. Contact person is Ronald Pijnenburg - Researcher - r.p.j.pijnenburg@uu.nl.

Keywords

Originally assigned keywords

Natural Sciences - Earth and related environmental sciences (1.5)

Induced seismicity

Compaction

Poroelasticity

Plasticity

Sandstone

Strain partitioning

Mechanisms

Clay

Tectonics > Earthquakes

Earth Gasses / Liquids

Rocks / Minerals / Crystals > Sedimentary rocks > Sedimentary rock physical / optical properties > Stability

Scanning Electrone Microscope

Triaxial

Strength

Thermocouple

Strain gauge

EPOS

multi-scale laboratories

rock and melt physics properties

Corresponding MSL vocabulary keywords

induced seismicity

strain

poroelastic deformation

ductile deformation

sandstone

strain partitioning

clay

scanning electron microscope (SEM)

thermometer

MSL enriched keywords

induced seismicity

Measured property

strain

Measured property

strain

Inferred deformation behavior

deformation behaviour

poroelastic deformation

ductile deformation

sedimentary rock

sandstone

strain partitioning

minerals

silicate minerals

phyllosilicates

clay

unconsolidated sediment

clastic sediment

clay

Apparatus

electron microscopy

scanning electron microscope (SEM)

Ancillary equipment

measurement of temperature

thermometer

inelastic deformation

subsurface energy production

hydrocarbon energy production

gas field

wacke

Slochteren sandstone

porosity

microphysical deformation mechanism

intragranular cracking

intergranular slip

time-dependent mechanism

porosity

Analyzed feature

deformation microstructure

brittle microstructure

intragranular crack

intergranular slip

surface subsidence

MSL enriched sub domains i

rock and melt physics

analogue modelling of geologic processes

microscopy and tomography

Source

https://public.yoda.uu.nl/geo/UU01/8AVM9K.html

Source publisher

Utrecht University

DOI

10.24416/uu01-8avm9k

Creators

Ronald Pijnenburg

Utrecht University

ORCID:

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0653-7565

Berend Antonie Verberne

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Geological Survey of Japan, Tsukuba, Japan

ORCID:

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1208-6193

Suzanne Hangx

Utrecht University

ORCID:

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2253-3273

Christopher James Spiers

Utrecht University

ORCID:

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3436-8941

Author identifier (Scopus):

7003318682

Contributors

Pijnenburg, Ronald

ContactPerson

Utrecht University

ORCID:

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0653-7565

Verberne, Berend Antonie

Researcher

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Geological Survey of Japan, Tsukuba, Japan

ORCID:

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1208-6193

Hangx, Suzanne

Supervisor

Utrecht University

ORCID:

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2253-3273

Spiers, Christopher James

Supervisor

Utrecht University

ORCID:

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3436-8941

Author identifier (Scopus):

7003318682

Experimental rock deformation/HPT-Lab (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

HostingInstitution

Utrecht University

References

https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JB018702

https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btp184

Citation

Pijnenburg, R., Verberne, B. A., Hangx, S., & Spiers, C. J. (2019). Intergranular clay films control inelastic deformation in the Groningen gas reservoir: Evidence from split-cylinder deformation tests. Utrecht University. https://doi.org/10.24416/UU01-8AVM9K

Dates

Updated:

2024-07-12T11:07:21

Collected:

2017-01-01/2019-01-01

Language

en

Rights

Open - freely retrievable

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License

Datacite version

1.0

Geo location(s)

53.14228274279933, 6.447993994041667, 53.460706452448434, 7.041255712791667