Ministry of Higher Education and

Scientific Research
University of Technology
Petroleum Technology Department
hggggggggj Reservoir
Petrophysics

Porosity

Mustafa Moahmmed Fadhill

2nd Stage - B –
Supervised by :
Dr. Fadhil S. Kadhim
Introduction:
Porosity of reservoir is the property that tells how porous a rock is. It is also
defined as a measure of the capacity of reservoir rocks to contain or store
fluids. The porosity is genetically classified basing on standard
sedimentological description of reservoir rock; there are primary and
secondary porosity.

(a) The primary porosity types are:

 Inter-particle- In this type by which rock content was quickly lost in

muds and carbonate sands through compaction and cementation
respectively. This type is mostly found as siliciclastic sands.

 Intra particle porosity by which the porosity is made of interiors of

carbonate skeletal grains.

(b) Secondary porosity, the porosity formed after deposition leads to other
couple of reservoirs types.

 Dissolution porosity type is made of carbonate dissolution and

leaching. It is also called carbonate reservoirs.
 Fracture porosity which is characterized by not being voluminous.

Porosity can also be classified basing on rock morphology. There are three
types of morphologies to the pore spaces which are :

a) Caternary in which the pore open to more than one throat passage

b) Cul-de-sac in which the pore open to only one throat passage

c) Closed pore in which there is no connection with other pores

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Total porosity
Total porosity includes all void space regardless of whether the pores are
interconnected or isolated. There is no practical way in the laboratory to
measure isolated pore volume routinely on rocks. However, it can be
determined by disaggregating the samples. If the disaggregated rocks
contain smectite, the technique used to dry the samples can affect porosity
values and the oven-dried total porosity will be larger than the humidity-
dried total porosity (see Effective porosity below). Total porosity from
a density log would equate with the disaggregated oven-dried total porosity
from cores. The neutron log, however, would enlarge the definition to
include structural hydroxyl chemistry.

Laboratory determination of porosity

Most porosity analysis techniques require removal of soluble hydrocarbons
before sample analysis. Factors influencing sample cleaning include the
types of hydrocarbon present, the presence of salts precipitated from pore
waters, rock mineralogy, degree of cementation, and time constraints.
Different solvents and cleaning techniques can be used to remove
hydrocarbons from rocks. Toluene is generally an effective solvent for most
liquid hydrocarbons. If hydrocarbons cannot be removed with toluene,
toluene/methanol (azeotrope), chloroform/methanol (azeotrope), methylene
chloride or carbon disulfide may be used. Methanol is used to remove salts
formed from the evaporation of saline pore waters. Rocks
containing gypsum and smectite require special low temperature cleaning
techniques to minimize removal of structural and bound water.

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Pore volume measurement
Pore volume can be measured directly by resaturating a clean, dry rock with
a fluid. Resaturation is done with either gas (Boyle's law method) or liquid
(gravitational method). In the Boyle's law method, helium is used to saturate
the sample because it is inert, not easily adsorbed onto mineral surfaces, and
(due to its small molecular size) rapidly enters the micropore system. In the
laboratory, the core is often placed in an apparatus consisting of a flexible
rubber boot inside a core holder . Pressure is then applied to the outside of
the rubber boot to seat it against the sample. Helium from a reference cell at
known pressure is then expanded into the pore volume. The new equilibrium
pressure in the system is monitored, and the pore volume is calculated from
Boyle's law:

Fig(1): Well sorted vs poorly sorted porosity

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Porosity measurements of Wisconsin rocks
The porosities of the rocks measured vary from 2% to more than 30%. Much
of this variation is due to lithology (rock type). The data table lists the
porosities of the tested samples and the figure at right shows the range and
distribution of porosities by lithology. The dolomites have the lowest
porosities (2–6%), the shales have the widest range of porosities (8–29%,
although most are less than 15%), and the sandstones have the highest
porosity (11–32%).

Fig(2): Distribution of porosities for dolomite, shale, and sandstone.

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As the sediments were deposited and the rocks were being formed during
geological times, some void spaces that developed became isolated from the
other void spaces by excessive cementation. Thus, many of the void spaces
are interconnected while some of the pore spaces are completely isolated.
This leads to two distinct types of porosity, namely:

• Absolute porosity
• Effective porosity

Absolute porosity
The absolute porosity is defined as the ratio of the total pore space in the
rock to that of the bulk volume. A rock may have considerable absolute
porosity and yet have no conductivity to fluid for lack of pore
interconnection. The absolute porosity is generally expressed
mathematically by the following relationship:

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Effective porosity
From the standpoint of flow through a porous medium only interconnected
pores are of interest, hence the concept of effective porosity defined as the
percentage of interconnected pore space with respect to the bulk volume, or

The effective porosity is used in all reservoir engineering calculations

because it represents the interconnected pore space that contains the
recoverable hydrocarbon fluids. Transportation of fluids is controlled
mainly by connected pores. For intergranular materials, poorly to
moderately well cemented, the total porosity is approximately equal to
effective porosity. For more cemented materials and some carbonates,
significant difference in total porosity and effective porosity values may
occur. Another type of pores that seem to belong to the class of
interconnected pores but contribute very little to the flow, are dead-end
pores or stagnant pockets (Figure 2‑4). These pores have just a constricted
opening to the flow path so the fluid in them is practically stagnant. In
certain mechanisms of flow such as diffusion and dispersion it is important
to pay attention to the effects of dead-end pores.

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References:

 Horgan, G. W. (February 1999). "An investigation of the geometric

influences on pore space diffusion". Geoderma. 88
 Nelson, J. Roy (January 2000). "Physics of
impregnation" (PDF). Microscopy Today. 8 (1):
24. doi:10.1017/S1551929500057114. Archived from the
original (PDF)
 Rouquerol, Jean (December 2011). "Liquid intrusion and alternative
methods for the characterization of macroporous materials (IUPAC
Technical Report)*" (PDF.
 Glasbey, C. A.; G. W. Horgan; J. F. Darbyshire (September 1991).
"Image analysis and three-dimensional modelling of pores in soil
aggregates".