Experimental Verification of a Modified Scaling Group for Spontaneous Imbibition

Zhang, Xiaoyun; Morrow, Norman R.; Ma, Sai

doi:10.2118/30762-pa

Cited by 275 publications

(215 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…3.13b, it can be seen that they fall into a narrow range and are close to the correlated results for Berea 500 sandstone (Zhang, et al, 1996) and a wide range of other rock types (Viksund et al, 1998). Whitestone UZ showed slightly faster imbibition at early time; this could be related to the inherent heterogeneity.…”

Section: Vsww Imbibitionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Wettability and Oil Recovery by Imbibition and Viscous Displacement from Fractured and Heterogeneous Carbonates

Morrow¹,

Buckley²

2006

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About one-half of U.S. oil reserves are held in carbonate formations. The remaining oil in carbonate reservoirs is regarded as the major domestic target for improved oil recovery. Carbonate reservoirs are often fractured and have great complexity even at the core scale. Formation evaluation and prediction is often subject to great uncertainty. This study addresses quantification of crude oil/brine/rock interactions and the impact of reservoir heterogeneity on oil recovery by spontaneous imbibition and viscous displacement from pore to field scale.Wettability-alteration characteristics of crude oils were measured at calcite and dolomite surfaces and related to the properties of the crude oils through asphaltene content, acid and base numbers, and refractive index. Oil recovery was investigated for a selection of limestones and dolomites that cover over three orders of magnitude in permeability and a factor of four variation in porosity. Wettability control was achieved by adsorption from crude oils obtained from producing carbonate reservoirs. The induced wettability states were compared with those measured for reservoir cores. The prepared cores were used to investigate oil recovery by spontaneous imbibition and viscous displacement. The results of imbibition tests were used in wettability characterization and to develop mass transfer functions for application in reservoir simulation of fractured carbonates. Studies of viscous displacement in carbonates focused on the unexpected but repeatedly observed sensitivity of oil recovery to injection rate. The main variables were pore structure, mobility ratio, and wettability. The potential for improved oil recovery from rate-sensitive carbonate reservoirs by increased injection pressure, increased injectivity, decreased well spacing or reduction of interfacial tension was evaluated. Table A2. Contact angles on cleaved calcite after aging in crude oil (initially dry or wet with the same aqueous phase as that used to float off bulk oil)…………………………53 Table 2.1 Synthetic brine composition…………………………………………………..87 Table 2.2 Selected properties of crude oil samples………………………………………87 Table 2.3 Gambier and Edwards (GC) cores tested for the effect of initial water saturation. Table 2.4 Edwards (GC) cores tested for the effect of aging time for Cottonwood crude oil………………………………………………………………………………………...88 Table 2.5 Gambier and Edwards (GC) MXW-F cores tested for wetting stability and the effect of oil phase viscosity …………………………………………………………89 Table 3.1 Synthetic brine composition…………………………………………………104 Table 3.2 Edwards (GC) cores tested with different mineral oil viscosities…………...105 Table 3.3 Edwards (GC) cores tested for the effect of variation in core length (µ o = 3.8cP). Fig. 1.10 AFM image of calcite exposed first to (0.1M NaCl) brine then aged for 2 days and 21 days in E-1XD-00 crude oil (deflection image in water)………………………..37 Fig. 1.11 AFM image of calcite exposed first to (0.1M NaCl) brine then aged for 2 days and 21 days in Tensleep crude oil (deflection image...

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Section: Vsww Imbibitionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Wettability and Oil Recovery by Imbibition and Viscous Displacement from Fractured and Heterogeneous Carbonates

Morrow¹,

Buckley²

2006

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“…The commonly used boundary conditions for cylindrical cores in imbibition experiments include all-faces-open (AFO), one-end-open (OEO), two-ends-open (TEO) and two-endsclosed (TEC) (Zhang et al, 1996;Ma et al, 1997;) (Fig. 14).…”

Section: Completely Counter-current Imbibitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By examining the imbibition data for different boundary conditions, Zhang et al (1996) modified the characteristic length as follows:…”

Section: Completely Counter-current Imbibitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A critical review on fundamental mechanisms of spontaneous imbibition and the impact of boundary condition, fluid viscosity and wettability

Meng

Liu

Wang

2017

Adv. Geo-Energ. Res.

115

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Spontaneous imbibition (SI) is one of the primary mechanisms of oil production from matrix system in fractured reservoirs. The main driving force for SI is capillary pressure. Researches relating to SI are moving fast. In the past few years, amount of literature on the development of SI with respect to many variables, such as mechanism of imbibition, scaling of imbibition data and wettability of matrix blocks. In this review, we first introduced the fundamental physics mechanism of SI through capillary tube models and micromodels. Then both conventional and more novel experimental methods of measuring oil production are discussed thoughtfully. This is followed by reviewing the oil production performance under various boundary conditions and the characteristic length in scaling equations that have been used to account for different cores shape and boundary conditions. The effect of fluid viscosity on the rate of oil production and final oil recovery as well as the development of viscosity term in the scaling equation are reported. The commonly used methods to quantitatively evaluate the wettability of cores and the SI under mix-and oil-wet conditions are introduced. And last but not least, the methods and mechanism of wettability alteration for enhanced oil recovery in mix-or oil-wet fractured reservoirs are presented.Keywords: Spontaneous imbibition, fractured reservoirs, boundary condition, viscosity ratio, wettability.Citation: Meng, Q., Liu, H., Wang, J. A critical review on fundamental mechanisms of spontaneous imbibition and the impact of boundary condition, fluid viscosity and wettability.

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“…Hence the characteristic length, L c , for each core is defined by (Zhang et al, 1996) and was close to 1.24 cm for each core as a result of the identical size and geometry. Oil production as a function of time was measured in standard imbibition cells at ambient temperature and with 0% initial water saturation for each test.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 85%

Fundamentals of Reservoir Surface Energy as Related to Surface Properties, Wettability, Capillary Action, and Oil Recovery From Fractured Reservoirs by Spontaneous Imbibition

Morrow¹,

Fischer²,

Liu³

et al. 2004

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The objective of this project is to increase oil recovery from fractured reservoirs through improved fundamental understanding of the process of spontaneous imbibition by which oil is displaced from the rock matrix into the fractures. Spontaneous imbibition is fundamentally dependent on the reservoir surface free energy but this has never been investigated for rocks. In this project, the surface free energy of rocks will be determined by using liquids that can be solidified within the rock pore space at selected saturations. Thin sections of the rock then provide a two-dimensional view of the rock minerals and the occupant phases. Saturations and oil/rock, water/rock, and oil/water surface areas will be determined by advanced petrographic analysis and the surface free energy which drives spontaneous imbibition will be determined as a function of increase in wetting phase saturation. The inherent loss in surface free energy resulting from capillary instabilities at the microscopic (pore level) scale will be distinguished from the decrease in surface free energy that drives spontaneous imbibition.A mathematical network/numerical model will be developed and tested against experimental results of recovery versus time over broad variation of key factors such as rock properties, fluid phase viscosities, sample size, shape and boundary conditions. Two fundamentally important, but not previously considered, parameters of spontaneous imbibition, the capillary pressure acting to oppose production of oil at the outflow face and the pressure in the nonwetting phase at the no-flow boundary versus time, will also be measured and modeled. Simulation and network models will also be tested against special case solutions provided by analytic models.In the second stage of the project, application of the fundamental concepts developed in the first stage of the project will be demonstrated. The fundamental ideas, measurements, and analytic/numerical modeling will be applied to mixed-wet rocks. Imbibition measurements will include novel sensitive pressure measurements designed to elucidate the basic mechanisms that determine induction time and drive the very slow rate of spontaneous imbibition commonly observed for mixed-wet rocks. In further demonstration of concepts, three approaches to improved oil recovery from fractured reservoirs will be tested; use of surfactants to promote imbibition in oil wet rocks by wettability alteration: manipulation of injection brine composition: reduction of the capillary back pressure which opposes production of oil at the fracture face.

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Experimental Verification of a Modified Scaling Group for Spontaneous Imbibition

Cited by 275 publications

References 13 publications

Wettability and Oil Recovery by Imbibition and Viscous Displacement from Fractured and Heterogeneous Carbonates

Wettability and Oil Recovery by Imbibition and Viscous Displacement from Fractured and Heterogeneous Carbonates

A critical review on fundamental mechanisms of spontaneous imbibition and the impact of boundary condition, fluid viscosity and wettability

Fundamentals of Reservoir Surface Energy as Related to Surface Properties, Wettability, Capillary Action, and Oil Recovery From Fractured Reservoirs by Spontaneous Imbibition

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