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Subsurface Energy and Environmental Protection—2nd Edition

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Dear Colleagues,

As the oil and gas industry develops, certain accidents, including the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, are bound to occur. A large number of harmful components, such as aromatics, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), etc., enter the surrounding environments and pose a great threat to the ecosystem and human health. Therefore, efficient remediation and treatment methods should be developed to clean the contaminants.

Besides the existing environmental problems in the oil and gas field, as the global awareness of environmental protection increases and the relative regulations and policies become stricter, there is an urgent need to improve the environmental monitoring and control during the drilling and production process and to develop environmentally friendly materials and techniques.

Furthermore, the worldwide agreement on controlling carbon emission stimulates the research and field study in CO₂-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and sequestration, and also promotes the study of low-carbon energy resources (such as natural gas hydrates and related issues in sustainable energies, including underground hydrogen storage (UHS), geothermal exploitation, etc.).

This Special Issue focuses on topics including, but not limited to, issues listed above, and we invite authors to submit original and high-quality research and review articles addressing these issues using experimental methods, computational tools, or theoretical analysis.

Dr. Xiaopu Wang
Dr. Yujie Yuan
Dr. Naser Golsanami
Guest Editors

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Keywords

oil and gas contamination/remediation
environmental monitoring and control
environmental friendly materials and techniques in oil and gas development
environmental issues regarding the exploitation of natural gas hydrates
enhanced oil recovery (EOR)
microbial enhanced oil recovery
CO₂ enhanced oil recovery
CO₂ capture
utilization and storage (CCUS)
underground hydrogen storage (UHS)
geothermal exploitation

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Research

26 pages, 3404 KB

Open AccessArticle

Experimental Investigation of Permeability Sensitivity of Coal Reservoir to Reservoir Pressure and Its Fluid–Solid Coupling Control Mechanism

by Xiaokai Xu, Yue Xin, Qingchao Li, Shuo Zhang, Lin Tian and Zhengzheng Xue

Energies 2026, 19(9), 2132; https://doi.org/10.3390/en19092132 - 29 Apr 2026

Viewed by 357

Abstract

During coalbed methane (CBM) production, coal reservoir pore/fracture structure varies dynamically under the action of fluid–solid coupling. And coal reservoir permeability changes accordingly. In order to factually investigate the dynamic changes in coal reservoir permeability in the CBM well drainage process, a comparative simulation experiment on the difference in coal permeability sensitivity to confining pressure (external pressure) and pore pressure (internal pressure) was carried out in this study. The results show that coal permeability presents a typical negative exponential decline with a decrease in pore pressure. The pore pressure sensitivity experiment can effectively simulate the permeability sensitivity characteristics caused by coal reservoir pressure. Based on the negative exponential function relationship between permeability and effective stress, a new calculating method for the effective stress coefficient was deduced. Namely, its value could be expressed as the quotient of the pore pressure sensitivity curve regression coefficient divided by the confining pressure sensitivity curve regression coefficient. A dynamic theoretical model for coal reservoir permeability characterized by reservoir pressure was systematically constructed based on the unique fluid (gas/liquid)–solid coupling characteristics of coal reservoirs. Furthermore, the general characteristics of the stress sensitivity of coal permeability during coalbed methane (CBM) recovery were analyzed. The dynamic evolution characteristics of coal reservoir permeability in the study area were further examined. Taking the production and drainage data of a typical actual CBM production well as an example, the theories regarding the permeability sensitivity of coal reservoirs to reservoir pressure presented in this paper were validated in practice. This indirectly confirmed the rationality and accuracy of the calculation method for the effective stress coefficient obtained through laboratory-based permeability sensitivity simulation experiments. This research provides robust theoretical support for the systematic monitoring and prediction of fluid production, reservoir pressure, and permeability during the CBM production process, carrying significant practical implications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Subsurface Energy and Environmental Protection—2nd Edition)

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