Characteristics of Tight Oil Reservoir and A Novel Key Technique for Its Development

As shown by the actual reservoir development, for ideal tight oil reservoirs, we have two typical kinds of source-reservoir relationship, i.e., the source contacts with the reservoir and the source adjoins the reservoir, and the ideal shale oil is not included in the tight oil. Thus, the definition and the classification of the tight oil are clear. The characteristics of the tight oil reservoirs are summarized, including the aspects of the structure, the petrophysics, and the fluid property. In China, the tight oil has a huge resource potential, which is the most realistic alternative in the unconventional oil and gas development field. HiWAY flow-channel hydraulic fracturing technique has a huge potential in the development of the tight oil, which has been applied in more than forty unconventional oil and gas fields in ten countries successfully, increasing the production by more than 20% while saving plenty of water and proppant. The keys of this new technique are the alternative and intermittent injection of the proppant and the high intensive gelled fracturing fluid, and a patented fabric additive keeping the stable distribution of flow-channel. This technique has not been applied in China so far.