RELATIVE PERMEABILITY of PETROLEUM RESERVOIRS Mehdi Honarpour Kee Ccilou ly, A. Herbert HarveyRelative Permeability of Petroleum Reservoirs 29 508 Authors Mehdi Honarpour Associate Professor of Petroleum Engineering Department of Petroleum Engineering Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology Butte, Montana Leonard Koederitz A. Herbert Harvey Professor of Petroleum Engineering Chairman Department of Petroleum Engineering Department of Petroleum Engineering University of Missouri University of Missouri Rolla, Missouri Rolla, MissouriLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under ttle Relative permeability of petroleum reservoirs Bibliography: p, Includes index. 1. Rocks—Permesbility. 2. Oil reservoir engineering. 3. Carbonate reservoirs, 1. Honarpour, Mehdi, . Koederitz, Leonard. IM Harvey, A. Herbert, TNS70S.R45 1986 552.5 85-7827 ISBN 0.8493-5739-X ‘This book represents information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reprinted material is quoted with permission, and sources ae indicated. A wide variety of references ae listed. Every reasonable effort has been made to give reliable data and information, but the author and the publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity ofall materials or for the consequences oftheir use Al rights reserved. This book, or any pars t from the authors. of, may not be reproduced in any form without written consent ‘The Society of Petroleum Engineers, Inc. acknowledges permission granted by the authors to reprint this book. ©1994 by Mehdi Matt Honarpour (©1986 by CRC Press, Ine International Standard Book Number 1-555¢ 53-063-4 Printe in the United StatesBIBLIc inv. 29508 In 1856 Henry P. Darcy determined that the rate of flow|of water-through a sand filter could be described by the equation PREFACE q=KA where q tepresents the rate at which water flows downward through a vertical sand pack with cross-sectional area A and length L; the terms h, and h, represent hydrostatic heads at the inlet and outlet, respectively, of the sand filter, and K is a constant. Darcy’s experiments, were confined to the flow of water through sand packs which were 100% saturated with water. Later investigators determined that Darcy's law could be modified to describe the flow of fluids other than water, and that the proportionality constant K could be replaced by k/ 14, where k is a property of the porous material (permeability) and 1 is a property of the fluid (viscosity). With this modification, Darcy’s law may be written in a more general form as kp dz _ ap ves] where s stance in direction of flow, which is taken as positive Volume of flux across a unit area of the porous medium in unit time along flow path § Zz = Vertical coordinate, which is taken as positive downward ° Density of the fluid g = Gravitational acceleration ap = Pressure gradient along S at the point to which v, refers ds ‘The volumetric flux v, may be further defined as q/A, where q is the volumetric flow rate and A is the average cross-sectional area perpendicular to the lines of flow Tecan be shown that the permeability term which appears in Darcy's law has units of length squared. A porous material has a permeability of 1 D when a single-phase fluid with a viscosity of 1 cP completely saturates the pore space of the medium and will flow through it under viscous flow at the rate of 1 cm'/sec/cm? cross-sectional area under a pressure gradient of 1 atm/em, It is important to note the requirement that the flowing fluid must completely saturate the porous medium. Since this condition is seldom met in a hydrocarbon reservoir, itis evident that further modification of Darcy’s law is needed if the law is to be applied to the flow of fluids in an oil or gas reservoir ‘A more useful form of Darcy’s law can be obtained if we assume that a rock which contains more than one fluid has an effective permeability to each fluid phase and that the effective permeability to each fluid is a function of its percentage saturation. The effective permeability of a rock to a fluid with which it is 100% saturated is equal to the absolute permeability of the rock. Effective permeability to each fluid phase is considered to be independent of the other fluid phases and the phases are considered to be immiscible. If we define relative permeability as the ratio of effective permeability to absolute perme- ability, Darcy's law may be restated for a system which contains three fluid phases as follows:where the subscripts 0, g, and w represent oil, gas, and water, respectively. Note that kyo, k,,. and k,, are the relative permeabilities to the three fluid phases at the respective saturations of the phases within the rock, Darcy's law is the basis for almost all calculations of fluid flow within a hydrocarbon reservoir. In order to use the law, it is necessary to determine the relative permeability of the reservoir rock to each of the fluid phases; this determination must be made throughout the range of fluid saturations that will be encountered. The problems involved in measuring and predicting relative permeability have been studied by many investigators. A summary of the major results of this research is presented in the following chaptersTHE AUTHORS Dr. Mehdi “Matt” Honarpour is an associate professor of petroleum engineering at the Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology, Butte, Montana. Dr. Honarpour obtained his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in petroleum engineering from the University of Mis- souri-Rolla. He has authored many publications in the area of reservoir engineering and core analysis, Dr. Honarpour has worked as reservoir engineer, research engineer, consultant, ‘and teacher for the past 15 years. He is a member of several professional organizations, including the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, the honorary society of Sigma Xi, Pi Epsilon Tau and Phi Kappa Phi. Leonard F, Koederitz is a Professor of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla. He received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Missouri- Rolla. Dr. Koederitz has worked for Atlantic-Richfield and previously served as Department Chairman at Rolla. He has authored or co-authored several technical publications and two texts related to reservoir engineering, A. Herbert Harvey received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Colorado School of Mines and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Oklahoma. He has authored or co-authored numerous technical publications on topics related to the production of petroleum. Dr. Harvey is Chairman of both the Missouri Oil and Gas Council and the Petroleum Engineering Department at the University of Missouri-Rolla.ACKNOWLEDGMENT ‘The authors wish to acknowledge the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the American Petroleum Institute for granting permission to use their publications. Special thanks are due J. Joseph of Flopetrol Johnston and A. Manjnath of Reservoir Inc. for their contributions and reviews throughout the writing of this book.TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Measurement of Rock Relative Permeability ......-+ L iit VL. References Introduction. : Steady-State Methods . Penn-State Method : Single Sample Dynamic Method Stationary Fluid Methods. Hassler Method. . Hafford Method . . Dispersed Feed Method Unsteady-State Methods Capillary Pressure Methods Centrifuge Methods ... Calculation from Field Data . mmoOeD> Chapter 2 Two-Phase Relative Permeability. I iit UL Introduction Rapoport and Leas Gates, Lietz, and Fulcher IV. Fatt, Dykstra, and Burdine. V. Wyllie, Sprangler, and Gardner. VI. Timmerman, Corey, and Johnson VII. Wahl, Toreaso, and Wyllie VII. Brooks and Corey IX. Wyllie, Gardner, and Torcaso . . X. Land, Wyllie, Rose, Pirson, and Boatman... XI. Knopp, Honarpour et al., and Hirasaki References. : Chapter 3 Factors Affecting Two-Phase Relative Permeability .. naar ween AB 1. Introduction. : 45 Il. Two-Phase Relative Permeabli 45 IIL. Effects of Saturation States 49 IV. _ Effects of Rock Properties 50 V. Definition and Causes of Wettabil 254 VI. Determination of Wettability 58 A. Contact Angle Method 58 B. __Imbibition Method. 60 C. Bureau of Mines Method ... 63 D. —Capillarimetric Method 63 E. Fractional Surface Area Method. 64 F. Dye Adsorption Method 64 G. Drop Test Method 64 H. — Methods of Bobek et al. 2 64 L Magnetic Relaxation Method 64 J. Residual Saturation Methods 65