ROCK AND FLUID PROPERTIESREVIEW OF ROCK PROPERTIES AND FLUID FLOW An understanding of the basic rock and fluid properties which control flow in a porous medium is a prerequisite to understanding how a waterflood performs and how a waterflood should be designed, implemented, and managed. The purpose of this section is not to teach the fundamentals of rock and fluid properties - a basic knowledge of these is assumed. However, certain multiphase flow properties will be discussed as they apply to waterflood systems. I. Wettability A. Definition In a rock/oil/brine system, wettability can be defined as the tendency of a fluid to preferentially adhere to, or wet, the surface of a rock in the presence of other immiscible fluids. In the case of a waterflood, the wetting phases can be oil or water; gas will often be present, but will not wet the rock. When the rock is water-wet, water occupies the small pores and contacts the rock surface in the large pores. The oil is located in the middle of the large pores. In an oil-wet system, the location of the two fluids is partly reversed from the water-wet case. Water usually continues to fill the very small pores but oil contacts the majority of the rock surface in the large pores. ‘The water present in the large pores in the oil ‘wet rock is located in the middle of the pore, does not contact the large pore throat surface, and is usually present in small amounts. Water fills the smallest pores even in the oil-wet system because oil never enters the small pore system due to capillary forces and consequently, the wettability of the small pores is not expected to change. Wettability concepts and the location of oil and connate water in the larger pores can be illustrated with a simple diagram. Consider the "large" pore in Figure 2-1 which contains both oil and water.FIGURE 2-1 PLANE VIEW, CROSS-SECTION VIEW, AND FLUID DISTRIBUTION IN A HYPOTHETICAL WATER-WET, OIL-WET, AND FRACTIONAL-WET PORE. al ee TORTUOUS PORE A PORE CROSS-SECTION AT POSITION A-A CCONNATE WATER on WATER.WET FRACTIONALWET It is important to note, however, that the term wettability is used for the wetting preference of the rock and does not necessarily refer to the fluid that is in contact with the rock at any given time. For example, consider a clean sandstone core that is saturated with a refined oil. Even though the rock surface is coated with oil, the sandstone core is still preferentially water-wet. Wettability is not a parameter that is used directly in the computation of waterflood performance. However, wettability can have a significant impact on such parameters as relative permeability, connate water saturation, residual oil saturation, and capillary pressure which directly affect waterflood performance. Anderson" published a series of excellent papers which discuss wettability and. its impact on rock, saturation, and fluid flow behavior.