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Original article
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 23 April 2015
Received in revised form
6 July 2015
Accepted 8 July 2015
Pore size determination of hydrocarbon reservoirs is one of the main challenging areas in reservoir
studies. Precise estimation of this parameter leads to enhance the reservoir simulation, process
evaluation, and further forecasting of reservoir behavior. Hence, it is of great importance to estimate the pore size of reservoir rocks with an appropriate accuracy. In the present study, a modied
J-function was developed and applied to determine the pore radius in one of the hydrocarbon
reservoir rocks located in the Middle East. The capillary pressure data vs. water saturation (PceSw)
as well as routine reservoir core analysis include porosity (4) and permeability (k) were used to
develop the J-function. First, the normalized porosity (4z), the rock quality index (RQI), and the ow
zone indicator (FZI) concepts were used to categorize all data into discrete hydraulic ow units
(HFU) containing unique pore geometry and bedding characteristics. Thereafter, the modied
J-function was used to normalize all capillary pressure curves corresponding to each of predetermined HFU. The results showed that the reservoir rock was classied into ve separate rock
types with the denite HFU and reservoir pore geometry. Eventually, the pore radius for each of
these HFUs was determined using a developed equation obtained by normalized J-function corresponding to each HFU. The proposed equation is a function of reservoir rock characteristics
including 4z, FZI, lithology index (J*), and pore size distribution index (3 ). This methodology used,
the reservoir under study was classied into ve discrete HFU with unique equations for permeability, normalized J-function and pore size. The proposed technique is able to apply on any
reservoir to determine the pore size of the reservoir rock, specially the one with high range of
heterogeneity in the reservoir rock properties.
Copyright 2015, Southwest Petroleum University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on
behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Keywords:
Pore size
Pore geometry
Hydraulic ow unit
Capillary pressure
J-function
1. Introduction
Fluid ow through porous media is one of the crucial topics
in hydrocarbon reservoir studies. This phenomenon is highly
affected by the pore geometry of the reservoir rocks. Reservoir
* Corresponding author. Petroleum Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Regina, Regina, SK S4S 0A2, Canada.
Tel.: 1 306 585 5667.
E-mail address: farshid.torabi@uregina.ca (F. Torabi).
Peer review under responsibility of Southwest Petroleum University.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petlm.2015.07.004
2405-6561/Copyright 2015, Southwest Petroleum University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open
access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Pc Pnw Pw
(1)
Since oil and water are typically the two main uids in a
water-wet hydrocarbon reservoir, the above equation can be
written as:
Pcow Po Pw
(2)
2g cos q
Pc
r
(3)
s
Pc
k
JSw
g cos q 4
Pc
RQI
g cos q
(5)
(6)
By applying Darcy's and Poiseuille's Laws, a relationship between porosity and permeability can be derived as shown in Eq.
(7):
r2 4
8t2
2
r2 4
4 r 2 4$rmh
8t2 2t2 2
2t2
(7)
(8)
rmh
1
4
Sgv 1 4
(9)
43
"
1
Fs t2 S2gv
1 42
#
(10)
where the term Fst2 has been referred to as the Kozeny constant.
Dividing both sides of Eq. (10) by porosity and taking the
square root of both sides results in:
s
"
#
k
4
1
p
4 1 4
Fs tSgv
(11)
RQI 4z $FZI
(4)
JSw
107
(12)
4
14
(13)
1
FZI p
Fs tSgv
(14)
4z
JSw
Pc
4 $FZI
g cos q z
(15)
Pc
2
g cos q r
(16)
JSw
2
4 $FZI
r z
(17)
For a single hydraulic ow unit with unique FZI value, the Jfunction can be written as follows [19]:
1
JSw J * Swn
(18)
108
where
Swn
Table 1
Rock properties of 31 core samples.
Sw Swir
1 Swir
(19)
24z $FZI
(20)
1
J * Swn
r z$Swn
(21)
24z $FZI
J*
(22)
Sample no.
k (md)
Swir
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
10
11
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
21
22
23
24
26
28
29
30
31
0.062
0.083
0.066
0.110
0.037
0.077
0.088
0.141
0.299
0.250
0.042
0.071
0.163
0.142
0.116
0.104
0.093
0.117
0.155
0.246
0.195
0.103
0.154
0.105
0.133
0.238
0.093
68.154
0.161
230.121
0.682
0.160
0.004
1.247
3.212
1.501
1.359
4.212
0.548
0.158
0.504
0.010
0.064
183.061
797.538
2419.099
1180.743
19.684
40.599
0.007
0.014
0.119
0.221
0.025
0.234
0.026
0.105
0.175
0.370
0.214
0.200
0.313
0.061
0.130
0.334
0.189
0.238
0.394
0.301
0.026
0.015
0.035
0.028
0.132
0.082
0.424
0.439
0.410
109
Fig. 5. Five capillary pressure data set for obtained hydraulic ow units.
Fig. 3. Reservoir quality index vs. normalized porosity.
Fig. 7. Pore size radius vs. normalized water saturation for each hydraulic ow unit.
110
Table 2
Rock characteristics and equations obtained for each hydraulic ow unit.
HFU#1
HFU#2
HFU#3
HFU#4
HFU#5
FZI
J*
Permeability eq.
276.61
73.24
14.93
5.81
1.83
0.0333
0.0411
0.0501
0.0931
0.1861
1.2063
1.0142
1.0299
1.0466
1.1561
6614.7
2146.6
404.55
68.548
17.345
k
k
k
k
k
12.626e20.2534
1.0271e19.7474
0.0776e16.4694
0.0042e23.1694
0.0034e12.4134
J*
Pc
Pnw
Pw
Pcow
Po
Pw
r
rmh
Sw
Swn
Swir
(Sw)
(Sw)
(Sw)
(Sw)
(Sw)
0.0333S0.829
wn
0.0411S0.986
wn
0.0501S0.971
wn
0.0931S0.956
wn
0.1861S0.865
wn
6614.7S0.829
wn
2146.6S0.986
wn
404.55S0.971
wn
68.548S0.956
wn
17.345S0.865
wn
lithology index
capillary pressure (psia)
non-wetting phase pressure (psia)
wetting phase pressure (psia)
capillary pressure of oil and water system (psia)
oil pressure (psia)
water pressure (psia)
pore radius (nm)
mean hydraulic unit radius (nm)
water saturation
normalized water saturation
irreducible water saturation
Greeks
g
4
4z
q
3
z
t
Abbreviations
RQI
rock quality index
FZI
ow zone indicator
HFU
hydraulic ow unit
References
5. Conclusions
In this study the pore size of a hydrocarbon reservoir rock was
determined by a new proposed technique. The ow zone indicator (FZI) approach was used to classify the reservoir rock into
separate zones that have similar rock characteristics; which are
known as hydraulic ow units (HFU). The measured capillary
pressure curves are sub-grouped into ve categories based on the
determined hydraulic ow units. Then J-function was employed
to normalize all capillary curves that assigned to these ow units.
Finally, by performing some mathematics, the new equation was
developed to estimate pore size radius for each ow unit. The
developed equation is a function of FZI, lithology index (J*), pore
size distribution index (3 ) normalized water saturation (Swn) and
normalized porosity (4z). The results of this study indicated that
the proposed method to determine the pore size is dependent on
the several rock properties and is not restricted to the specic
reservoirs; it is able to be applied on any reservoir rocks with
diverse range and high heterogeneity in rock properties.
Nomenclatures
Symbols
k
permeability (md)
J
J-function
111