Enhanced Oil Recovery

Sec 2
Mohamed Salah Eid
 Rock and Fluid Properties
• Permeability
• Relative permeability
• Wettability
• Interfacial tension
• Mobility
• Viscosity
 Permeability
• Definition of Permeability:
Permeability is the ability of the rock to
transmit fluids.
• Main sources for permeability estimation
- core data
- log data, RFT and MDT
- well test data
- production data
 Permeability
• Factors affecting the magnitude of
permeability:
- Shape and size of sand grains.
- Sorting.
- Cementation.
- Fracturing and solution.
- Lithology or rock type.
 Permeability
• Absolute permeability - the permeability of a
porous medium with only one fluid present
(single phase flow).
• When two or more fluids are present
permeability of the rock to a flowing fluid is
called effective permeability (ko, kg, kw).
 Permeability
• Absolute Permeability: When the medium is
completely saturated with one fluid, then the
• permeability measurement is often referred to
as specific or absolute permeability.
• Absolute permeability is often calculated from
the steady-state flow equation:
 Permeability
• Effective Permeability: When the rock pore
spaces contain more than one fluid, then the
• permeability to a particular fluid is called the
effective permeability.
• Effective permeability is a measure of the fluid
conductance capacity of a porous medium to
a particular fluid when the medium is
saturated with more than one fluid.
 Permeability
• Relative Permeability: It is defined as the ratio
of the effective permeability to a fluid at a
given saturation to a base permeability.
• The base permeability is commonly taken as
the effective permeability to the fluid at 100%
saturation (absolute permeability) or the
effective non-wetting phase permeability at
irreducible wetting phase saturation.
 Permeability
• Effective permeability is normalized to some
base permeability to calculate relative
permeability.
• The common base permeabilities include:
- Air permeability.
- Absolute permeability.
- Effective non-wetting phase permeability at
irreducible wetting phase saturation.
 Wettability
• Wettability: Tendency of one fluid to spread
on or adhere to a solid surface in the presence
of other immiscible fluids.

• Wettability refers to interaction between fluid

and solid phases.
 Wettability
Wetting Phase Fluid
• Because of attractive forces between rock and
fluid, the wetting phase is drawn into smaller
pore spaces of porous media.
• Wetting phase fluid often is not very mobile.
 Wettability
Nonwetting Phase Fluid:
• Nonwetting phase does not preferentially wet
the solid rock surface.
• Repulsive forces between rock and fluid cause
nonwetting phase to occupy largest pore
spaces of porous media.
• Nonwetting phase fluid is often the most
mobile fluid, especially at large nonwetting
phase saturations.
 Wettability
• Interfacial tensionis : the force per unit length
required to create a new surface.

• Interfacial tension is commonly expressed in

Newtons/meter or dynes/cm (Newtons/meter
= 1,000 dynes/cm).
Imbibition and Drainage Processes
• Imbibition:
- Fluid flow process in which the saturation of the
wetting phase increases and the nonwetting
phase saturation decreases.
- Mobility of wetting phase increases as wetting
phase saturation increases.
• Example:
- Waterflooding an oil reservoir in which the
reservoir rock is preferentially water-wet.
Imbibition and Drainage Processes
• Drainage:
- Fluid flow process in which the saturation of the
nonwetting phase increases.
- Mobility of nonwetting fluid phase increases as
nonwetting phase saturation increases
• Example:
- Waterflooding an oil reservoir in which the reservoir
rock is preferentially oil-wet.
- Gas injection in an oil- or water-wet oil reservoir.
- Pressure maintenance or gas cycling by gas injection in
a retrograde condensate reservoir.
 Wettability
• Most common measurement techniques:
- Amott method.
- United States Bureau of Mines (USBM)
Method.
- - Contact angle measurement method.
1. Amott test
• Wettability is determined by the amount of oil
or water imbibed in a core sample compared
to the same values when flooded.

• Amott wettability values range from +1 for

complete water wetting to -1 for complete oil
wetting.
2. U.S.Bureau of Mines test:
• wettability index W is the logarithm of the
ratio of the areas under Pc curves in both
imbibitions and drainage processes.

• This index can range between -1.5 and +1

3. Contact angle test:
• can be measured directly on polished
surfaces.

• Ranges are from 0 to 75º for water wet, from

105 to 180º for oil wet, and from 75 to 105º
for intermediate wettability.
 ow

Water

Oil

os ws
Solid
• Most sandstone reservoirs tend to be water
wet or intermediate wet.
• Most carbonate reservoirs tend to be
intermediate wet or oil wet.
Capillary Pressure
 Principles

• Oil Mobility
• It is the ratio of effective permeability of rock
to oil, in oil
bank zone of the reservoir and the oil
viscosity.

𝑘𝑜
𝜆𝑜 =
𝜇𝑜
 Principles
• Mobility Ratio
It is the ratio of the mobility of displacing phase
(water)
to the mobility of the displaced phase (Oil).

𝜆𝑤
𝑀𝑤−𝑜 =
𝜆𝑜
𝑘𝑟𝑤 𝜇𝑜
𝑀𝑤−𝑜 = ∗
𝑘𝑟𝑜 𝜇𝑤
 Mobility
• Mobility can be decomposed into

• a rock property, the absolute permeability,

• a fluid property, the viscosity, and
• the rock-fluid property, the relative
permeability
 Viscosity
• Definition: the resistance to flow exerted by
a fluid, i.e., large values = low flow rates
• Units: centipoise = (centistoke)(density g/cc)

• Kinematic Viscosity
Viscosity
 Viscosity
Viscosity , Cp

Pressure , Psi
Viscosity
Thank You