Low-to-medium maturity lacustrine shale oil resource and in-situ conversion process technology: Recent advances and challenges

Low-to-medium maturity lacustrine shale oil resources have enormous potential and are projected to play a crucial role in the massive scale-up of crude oil production in China in the near future. The in-situ conversion process is currently the only effective means of utilizing this resource. Nevertheless, significant scientific challenges and technological bottlenecks still exist. Under this circumstance, the National Natural Science Foundation of China approved an integrated project of the Enterprise Innovation and Development Joint Fund titled "The Mechanism of Low-to-medium Maturity Lacustrine Shale Oil Resource Formation and its in-situ Conversion and Exploitation". This project aims to systematically investigate the entire process of in-situ conversion for low-to-medium maturity shale oil resources and lay a solid scientific and technological foundation for advancing the smooth implementation of on-site pilot trials. This paper presents the latest progress in this field and summarizes the existing scientific and technological challenges that need to be addressed. With the foundational support of the above project, our research team has made significant progress in several fields, including the formation mechanisms of organic matter superrich shale, low-to-medium maturity shale oil enrichment area evaluation, heat and mass transfer dynamics, coupled fluid field and hydrocarbon expulsion efficiency, exploitation methods, among others. Despite these theoretical advances, several major challenges were identified, which help to further focus on the critical scientific issues, determine the in-situ conversion technique-developing direction, and formulate a feasible implementation plan for future resource utilization. Document Type: Perspective Cited as: Zhao, W., Guan, M., Liu, W., Bian, C., Li, Y., Wang, X., Xu, R. Low-to-medium maturity lacustrine shale oil resource and in-situ conversion process technology: Recent advances and challenges. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2024, 12(2): 81-88. https://doi.org/10.46690/ager.2024.05.01