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Abstract.
Relative permeability and capillary pressure functions define how much
oil can be recovered and at what rate. These functions, in turn,
depend critically on the geometry and topology of the pore space, on
the physical characteristics of the rock grains and the fluids, and on
the conditions imposed by the recovery process. Therefore, imaging and
characterizing the rock samples and the fluids can add crucial insight
into the mechanisms that control field-scale oil recovery. The
fundamental equations of immiscible flow in the imaged samples are
solved, and one can elucidate how relative permeability and capillary
pressure functions depend on wettability, interfacial tension and the
interplay among viscous, capillary and gravitational forces. This
knowledge enables one to answer questions such as: Can a change of
injected brine salinity increase oil recovery and by how much? How
much more oil would be recovered if advancing contact angles could be
modified? Does water injection help to recover sufficiently more oil
or is it just for pressure maintenance? How can water imbibition be
enhanced and oil trapping limited? Can relative permeabilities be
modified with a polymer or with a chemical agent, such as an
electrolyte or surfactant? Can one rely on gravity drainage of oil
films to increase recovery? These and many other questions may be
answered through a combination of imaging and calculations presented
here. This paper summarizes the development of a complete quasi-static
pore network simulator of two-phase flow, "ANetSim," and its
validation against Statoil's state-of-the-art proprietary simulator.
ANetSim has been implemented in MATLABâ and it can run on any platform. Three-dimensional,
disordered networks with complex pore geometry have been used to
calculate primary drainage and secondary imbibition capillary
pressures and relative permeabilities. The results presented here
agree well with the Statoil simulations and experiments. |