CHAPTER 3 RESERVOIR ROCK

FLUID INTERACTIONS

Course Outline
Capillary Pressures & CP Curves
Surface and interfacial tension
Pressure & Temperature Gradients
Fluid distribution in reservoirs
Net pay thickness & Volumetrics
Drive mechanisms

Wettability
o
o

Measure of the attraction between rock surface and the fluids in the reservoir
The wetting fluid the one most attracted to the rock surface

Water Wet
(most fields)
o
o

Oil Wet (clay&carbonates)

Different types exhibit different production performance

Oil wet systems tend to exhibit early water breakthrough and lower initial
water saturation.

Wettability
The definition is defined as tendency of one fluid to spread on or adhere to a
solid surface in the presence of other immiscible fluids
It is based on contact angle of water surrounded by oil
The wettability of reservoir rocks to the fluids is important in that the
distribution of the fluids in the porous media is a function of wettability.
Because of the attractive forces, the wetting phase tends to occupy the smaller
pores of the rock and the nonwetting phase occupies the more open channels

Oil
Water

Water

Water-wet

Oil-wet

< 90o = water-wet

> 90o = oil-wet
90o = intermediate wettability
A variation of up to 20o is usually
considered in defining intermediate
wettability.

WATER-WET

OIL-WET
Air

OIL

< 90

OIL

Oil

WATER

FREE WATER

SOLID (ROCK)

GRAIN

BOUND WATER

WATE
R

WATE
R

> 90

WATER

SOLID (ROCK)

OIL
GRAIN

OIL
RIM
FREE WATER
Ayers, 2001

Wettability

Wettability

Effective & Relative Permeability Curves

Surface and Interfacial Tension

Two immiscible fluids are in contact (liquid & gas)
Surface tension the forces a ting on the interface
Interfacial tension the acting forces on the interface between two
liquid
the fluid separated by a well defined interface
which is a few molecular diameter thick

Surface and Interfacial Tension

Capillary Pressure

Capillary Pressure

Capillary Pressure

Capillary Pressure

Entry Pressure /Treshold Pressure

Capillary Pressure

Capillary Pressure

CP Curves

CP Curves

CP Curves

CP Curves

Capillary Pressure
Is the phase pressure difference across the interface of two immiscible fluids caused by
interfacial tension (IFT)

Pc Pnw Pw Po Pw
It is defined as:

2 cos
Pc
r

IFT
r cross sec tion pore radius

contact angle

Capillary Pressure
Can be measured directly on core in lab by several techniques:
Mercury / Air, Centrifuge, Porous Plate / Diaphragm
Choice of measurement depends on the sample type and cost.
Fluid systems are chosen to replicate the system in the reservoir and may
be:
Air-brine: brine saturated rock sample displaced by air
Oil-brine: brine saturated rock sample displaced by oil
Air-mercury: Mercury injected into dry-cleaned rock

cos res
Pcres Pclab
cos lab

When lab measurements are used, they must be corrected to

reservoir condition:

Capillary Pressure
P

Threshold pressure, ct must be overcome before we are able to displace the wetting
phase.

Pc

Pc(Swc)
Transition zone

Pct

Swc

Sw

Capillary Pressure
Once Swc is reached, any further increase in pressure fails to reduce the water saturation.

Capillary pressure can be related to height above Free Water Level (FWL), H.

The depth where Pc=0

FWL

H w o
Pc
144

Po

Pw

H
FWL

where

0.433144 lb / ft 3

Capillary Pressure
OWC can occur at or above FWL.
Depends on threshold capillary pressure
Some height above FWL where the Sw=100%

H vs Saturation
H

OWC
FWL
0

Swc

Sw

Capillary Pressure
From lab expt, Pc is converted to reservoir condition and :

144 Pcres
H
w o
Capillary pressure can be linked with permeability and porosity for specific lithologies
using Leverett J-function.

Pc
k
J
cos

For example: Core sample taken

from a reservoir (same lithologies
but different perm and porosity.
Jlab=Jres

Reservoir Pressure
Lithostatic pressure is caused by the pressure of rock,
transmitted by grain-to-grain contact.
Fluid pressure is caused by weight of column of fluids
in the pore spaces. Average = 0.465 psi/ft (saline water).
Overburden pressure is the sum of the lithostatic and
fluid pressures.

Reservoir Pressure

Reservoir Pressure
A pressure distribution of a
reservoir contain both oil and a
free gas cap shown as above
figure.
The composition of
the
respective fluids gives rise to
different pressure gradient. These
gradient will be determined by a
density of the fluid which result
from the specific composition of
the fluids.

Pressure

Reservoir Pressure

Reservoir Pressure

Fluid Pressure Gradients

Pressure gradients for oil, gas and water in the formation can be measured using
RFT and MDT logs
They provides info on fluid contacts
Reconcile with info from PVT and core.

Fluid
Gas
Oil
Water

Pressure Gradient
psi/ft
psi/m
0.08
0.26
0.35
1.15
0.43
1.41

Pressure gradient around the wateroil-contact

Pressure gradient around the wateroil-contact

Water is always present in reservoir rocks and the pressure in the water phase Pw
an the pressure in the hydrocarbon phase Po are different.
If P is the pressure at the oil/water contact where the saturation 100%, then the
pressure above this contact for the hydrocarbon and water are :
The different between these two pressure is the capillary pressure Pc.
In the transition zone the phase pressure different is given by the capillary
pressure which is a function of the wetting phase saturation.

Pressure gradient around the wateroil-contact

The free water level, FWL is not coincident with the oil water contact. OWC. The
water contact corresponds to the depth at which the oil saturation starts to
increase from water zone.
The free water level is the depth at which the capillary pressure is zero.
The different in depth between the oil water contact and the free water level
depends on the capillary pressure which is a function of permeability, grain size
etc
Providing the phase is continuous the pressures in the respective phase are:

On the depth-pressure diagram the intersection of the continuous phase pressire

line occurs at the free water level.

Reservoir Temperature
The temperature of the earth increases from the surface to center.
The heat flow out-wards through the Earths crust generates a geothermal
gradient,gc
In most petroleum basins the geothermal gradient is of the order of 1.6F/100ft.
The thermal characteristics of the reservoir rock and overburden give
rise to large thermal capacity and with a large surface area in the porous reservoir
one can assume that flow processes in a reservoir occur at constant reservoir
temperature. The local geothermal gradient will be influenced by associated
geological features like volcanic intrusions etc.
During drilling the local thermal gradient can be disturbed and by analysis of the
variation of temperature with time using a bottom hole temperature (BHT) gauge
the local undisturbed temperature can be obtained.

Exercise

EXERCISE

Recovery process
Recovery of hydrocarbons from an oil reservoir is commonly
recognised to occur in several recovery stages:
1.

Primary recovery
This is the recovery of hydrocarbons from the reservoir using the natural
energy of the reservoir as a drive
2.

Secondary recovery
This is recovery aided or driven by the injection of water or gas from the
surface
3.Tertiary recovery (Enhanced Oil Recovery, EOR)
There are a range of techniques broadly label as Enhanced Oil
Recovery that are applied to reservoirs in order to improve declining production

Recovery process
Recovery of hydrocarbons from an oil reservoir is commonly
recognised to occur in several recovery stages:
1.

Primary recovery
This is the recovery of hydrocarbons from the reservoir using the natural
energy of the reservoir as a drive
2.

Secondary recovery
This is recovery aided or driven by the injection of water or gas from the
surface
3.Tertiary recovery (Enhanced Oil Recovery, EOR)
There are a range of techniques broadly label as Enhanced Oil
Recovery that are applied to reservoirs in order to improve declining production

Primary recovery

Solution gas drive

Drive energy is provided by the expansion of the initial oil
volume its dissolved gas
Oil is completely surround by impermeable rock
No initial gas cap
No active water drive
Pressure drops slowly at first
As the producing GOR (gas oil ratio) increase pressure falls
rapidly
Ultimate recovery are in the range 15-30%

Gas cap drive

Where there is already free gas in the reservoir
Compared to the initial undersaturated condition for solution
gas drive
Energy from very high compressibility gas cap
Some energy from solution gas drive which is also present
Oil expansion is very low

Gas cap drive

Initial condition free gas in gas cap
Gas contact will be at bubble point
Gas has considerable compressibility
To get flow gas comes out of solution at producing interval.
Some degree of solution gas drive

Water drive
Reservoir in contact with the supporting aquifer
As oil is produced, aquifer water expands and displaced oil
Two type of water drive
Edge water
Bottom water
Effectiveness depends on ability of water to replace volume of
oil produced
Challenge to reservoir engineer is to predict behaviour prior to
production
Difficult to justify exploration costs to determine the size of a
water accumulation

Water drive

Secondary recovery
Secondary recovery is the result of human intervention in the
reservoir to improve recovery when the natural drives have
diminished or unreasonable low efficiencies.
Two techniques are commonly used:
Water Flooding
This method involves the injection of water at the base of reservoir to;
-Maintain the reservoir pressure
-Displace oil (usually with gas and water) towards production wells
Gas Flooding
This method is similar to waterflooding in principal, is used to;
- Maintain gas cap pressure even if oil displacement is not required

Tertiary recovery/ Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)

Primary and secondary recovery methods usually only extract
about 35% of the original oil in place. Many enhanced oil
recovery methods have been designed to do this. They fall into
three broad categories;
Thermal
Chemical
Miscible gas
All the procedure are extremely expensive and only being used
when economical

Tertiary recovery/ Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)

Thermal
The process use heat to improve oil recovery by reducing the viscosity of
heavy oils and vaporising lighter oils and hence improving their mobility
(steam injection)

Chemical
This process is using chemicals added to water in the injection fluid of a
waterflood to alter the flood efficiency in such a way as to improve oil
recovery (increasing water viscosity polymer flood)

Miscible gas
This method uses a fluid that is miscible with the oil. Such a fluid has a zero
interfacial tension with the oil and can in principle flush out all of the oil
remaining in the place. In practice a gas is used since gases have high
mobilities and can easily enter all the pores in the rock providing the gas is
miscible in the oil ( CO2,N2)

EOR

EOR

EOR

EOR

Gas cap drive

Water drive

Net Pay Thickness & Volumetrics

Net Pay Thickness & Volumetrics

Net Pay Thickness & Volumetrics

Net Pay Thickness & Volumetrics

Net Pay Thickness & Volumetrics

Net Pay Thickness & Volumetrics

Net Pay Thickness & Volumetrics

Assignment 1