scholarly journals Scaling of two-phase water-steam relative permeability and thermal fluxes in porous media

2020 ◽  
Vol 129 ◽  
pp. 103257
Author(s):  
Davide Picchi ◽  
Ilenia Battiato
2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
Renyi Cao ◽  
Junjie Xu ◽  
Xiaoping Yang ◽  
Renkai Jiang ◽  
Changchao Chen

During oilfield development, there exist multi-cycle gas–water mutual displacement processes. This means that a cycling process such as water driving gas–gas driving water–water driving gas is used for the operation of injection and production in a single well (such as foam huff and puff in single well or water-bearing gas storage). In this paper, by using core- and micro-pore scales model, we study the distribution of gas and water and the flow process of gas-water mutual displacement. We find that gas and water are easier to disperse in the porous media and do not flow in continuous gas and water phases. The Jamin effect of the gas or bubble becomes more severe and makes the flow mechanism of multi-cycle gas–water displacement different from the conventional water driving gas or gas driving water processes. Based on experiments of gas–water mutual displacement, the changing mechanism of gas–water displacement is determined. The results indicate that (1) after gas–water mutual displacement, the residual gas saturation of a gas–water coexistence zone becomes larger and the two-phase zone becomes narrower, (2) increasing the number of injection and production cycles causes the relative permeability of gas to increase and relative permeability for water to decrease, (3) it becomes easier for gas to intrude and the invaded water becomes more difficult to drive out and (4) the microcosmic fluid distribution of each stage have a great difference, which caused the two-phase region becomes narrower and effective volume of gas storage becomes narrower.


1964 ◽  
Vol 4 (01) ◽  
pp. 49-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pietro Raimondi ◽  
Michael A. Torcaso

Abstract The distribution of the oil phase in Berea sandstone resulting from increasing and decreasing the water saturation by imbibition was investigated Three types of distribution were recognized: trapped, normal and lagging. The amount of oil in each of these distributions was determined as a function of saturation by carrying out a miscible displacement in the oil phase under steady-state conditions of saturation. These conditions were maintained by flowing water and oil simultaneously in given ratios and by using a displacing solvent having essentially the same density and viscosity as the oil.A correlation shows the amount of trapped oil at any saturation to be directly proportional to the conventional residual oil saturation Sir The factor of proportionality is related to the fractional permeability to the water phase. Part of the oil which was not trapped was displaced in a piston- like manner (normal part) and part was eluted gradually (lagging part). The observed phenomena are more than of mere academic importance. Oil which is trapped may well provide the fuel essential for forward combustion and thus be beneficial. On the contrary, in tertiary recovery operations, it is this trapped oil which seems to make current techniques uneconomic. Introduction A typical oilfield may initially contain connate water and oil. After a period of primary production water often enters the field either from surrounding aquifers or from surface injection. During primary production evolution and establishment of a free gas saturation usually occurs. The effect and importance of this third phase is fully recognized. However, this investigation is limited to a two- phase system, one wetting phase (water) and one non-wetting phase (oil). The increase in water content of a water-wet system is termed imbibition. In a relative permeability-saturation diagram such as the one shown in Fig. 1, the initial conditions of the field would he represented by a point below a water saturation of about 35 per cent, i.e., where the imbibition and the drainage curves to the non-wetting phase nearly coincide. When water enters the field the relative permeability to oil decreases along the imbibition curve. At watered-out conditions the relative permeability to the oil becomes zero. At this point a considerable amount of oil, called residual oil, (about 35 per cent in Fig. 1) remains unrecovered. Any attempt to produce this oil will require that its saturation be increased. In Fig. 1 this would mean retracing the imbibition curve upwards. In addition, processes like alcohol and fire flooding, which can be employed at any stage of production, involve the complete displacement of connate water and an increase, or imbibition, of water saturation ahead of the displacing front. Thus, in several types of oil production it is the imbibition-relative permeability curve which rules the flow behavior. For this reason a knowledge of the distribution of the non-wetting phase, as obtained through imbibition, whether "coming down" or "going up" on the imbibition curve, is important. SPEJ P. 49^


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-333
Author(s):  
G. Tymen ◽  
N. Allanic ◽  
A. Sarda ◽  
P. Mousseau ◽  
C. Plot ◽  
...  

SPE Journal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (03) ◽  
pp. 0799-0808 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.. Shahverdi ◽  
M.. Sohrabi

Summary Large quantities of oil usually remain in oil reservoirs after conventional waterfloods. A significant part of this remaining oil can still be economically recovered by water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection. WAG injection involves drainage and imbibition processes taking place sequentially; therefore, the numerical simulation of the WAG process requires reliable knowledge of three-phase relative permeability (kr) accounting for cyclic-hysteresis effects. In this study, the results of a series of unsteady-state two-phase displacements and WAG coreflood experiments were used to investigate the behavior of three-phase kr and hysteresis effects in the WAG process. The experiments were performed on two different cores with different characteristics and wettability conditions. An in-house coreflood simulator was developed to obtain three-phase relative permeability values directly from unsteady-state WAG experiments by history matching the measured recovery and differential-pressure profiles. The results show that three-phase gas relative permeability is reduced in consecutive gas-injection cycles and consequently the gas mobility and injectivity drop significantly with successive gas injections during the WAG process, under different rock conditions. The trend of hysteresis in the relative permeabilty of gas (krg) partly contradicts the existing hysteresis models available in the literature. The three-phase water relative permeability (krw) of the water-wet (WW) core does not exhibit considerable hysteresis effect during different water injections, whereas the mixed-wet (MW) core shows slight cyclic hysteresis. This may indicate a slight increase of the water injectivity in the subsequent water injections in the WAG process under MW conditions. Insignificant hysteresis is observed in the oil relative permeability (kro) during different gas-injection cycles for both WW and MW rocks. However, a considerable cyclic-hysteresis effect in kro is observed during water-injection cycles of WAG, which is attributed to the reduction of the residual oil saturation (ROS) during successive water injections. The kro of the WW core exhibits much-more cyclic-hysteresis effect than that of the MW core. No models currently exist in reservoir simulators that can capture the observed cyclic-hysteresis effect in oil relative permeability for the WAG process. Investigation of relative permeability data obtained from these displacement tests at different rock conditions revealed that there is a significant discrepancy between two-phase and three-phase relative permeability of all fluids. This highlights that not only the three-phase relative permeability of the intermediate phase (oil), but also the three-phase kr of the wetting phase (water) and nonwetting phase (gas) are functions of two independent saturations.


1980 ◽  
Vol 20 (03) ◽  
pp. 206-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.K. Garg

Pressure Transient Analysis for Two-Phase Pressure Transient Analysis for Two-Phase (Water/Steam) Geothermal Reservoirs Abstract A new diffusivity equation for two-phase (water/steam) flow in geothermal reservoirs is derived. The geothermal reservoir may be initially two-phase or may evolve into a two-phase system during production. Solutions of the diffusivity equation for a continuous line source are presented; the solutions imply that the plot of bottomhole pressure vs. loglot (t=time) should be a straight pressure vs. loglot (t=time) should be a straight line. The slope of the straight line is inversely proportional to the total kinematic mobility. proportional to the total kinematic mobility. Comparison of the theory with a limited number of computer-simulated drawdown histories shows excellent agreement. Introduction In petroleum engineering and groundwater hydrology, well tests are conducted routinely to diagnose the well's condition and to estimate formation properties. Well test data may be analyzed to yield quantitative information regarding (1) formation permeability, storativity, and porosity, (2) the presence of barriers and leaky boundaries, (3) the condition of the well (i.e., damaged or stimulated), (4) the presence of major fractures close to the well, and (5) the mean formation pressure. Well testing procedures (and the quality of information obtained) procedures (and the quality of information obtained) depend on the age of the well. During temporary completion, testing involves producing the reservoir using a temporary plumbing system (e.g., drillstem testing), and the estimates obtained for the formation parameters are not very accurate. After completion, parameters are not very accurate. After completion, testing usually is performed in the hydraulic mode. In hydraulic testing, one or more wells are produced at controlled rates, and pressure changes within the producing well itself or nearby observation wells producing well itself or nearby observation wells (interference tests) are monitored.A major concern of well testing is the interpretation of pressure transient data. Much of the existing literature deals with isothermal single-phase (water/oil) and isothermal two-phase (oil with gas in solution, free gas) systems. In general, there is a lack of methodology for analyzing nonisothermal reservoir systems, either single- or two-phase (water/steam). Geothermal reservoirs commonly involve nonisothermal two-phase flow during well testing. This paper presents a theoretical framework for analyzing multiphase pressure transient data in geothermal systems. Two-Phase Flow in Geothermal Systems Consider a fully penetrating well located in an infinite reservoir of thickness h. We neglect any variations in either formation or fluid properties in the vertical direction. (This is a common assumption in pressure transient analysis.) The geothermal system may be two-phase before production or may evolve into a two-phase system as a result of fluid production. In the latter case, a boiling front will production. In the latter case, a boiling front will propagate outward from the wellbore. The boiling propagate outward from the wellbore. The boiling front may be treated as a constant-pressure boundary (p=saturation pressure corresponding to the local reservoir temperature).For the sake of simplicity, consider a reservoir that is initially two-phase everywhere. Furthermore, it is convenient to assume that the pressure (and, hence, temperature) is uniform throughout the system. In radial geometry, the pressure response is governed by the following diffusivity equation (see Appendix for a derivation of Eq. 1). (1) SPEJ P. 206


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