Effect of wettability on adverse mobility immiscible floods

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:199478

Vives, M T; Chang, Y C; Mohanty, K K

Many immiscible displacements in reservoirs occur at adverse mobility. Effect of wettability on these displacements is not well understood and often ignored in reservoir simulation. Recent macroscopic theories of viscous fingering treat adverse immiscible flows similar to miscible flows, the mixing in the fingered region being controlled by a Todd-Longstaff-type functional form. The wettability of the medium is taken into account only through the use of appropriate relative permeabilities. The goal of this paper is to understand the macroscopic bypassing in adverse mobility immiscible floods. Immiscible displacements are conducted in a quarter 5-spot model in both drainage and imbibition modes at similar effective mobility ratios and viscous-to-gravity numbers. The level of bypassing and gravity override is visualized and measured. Tertiary water-alternating-gas (WAG) displacements are also conducted at various WAG ratios and viscosity ratios. Fractional flow analysis and numerical simulation are used to understand these displacements. Experiments show that macroscopic viscous fingering is present in adverse viscosity immiscible displacements where no saturation shock is expected from 1-D fractional flow theory. Bypassing due to both fingering and gravity override is higher in the drainage mode than in the imbibition mode, with other key parameters being the same. Optimum WAG ratio in water-wet rock is a function of oil/solvent viscosity ratio. The macroscopic flow theory needs to include capillarity and viscous fingering to match these experimental findings.

• OSTI ID: 199478
• Report Number(s): CONF-951002--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
FLUID FLOW
GEOLOGIC MODELS
PERMEABILITY
PETROLEUM DEPOSITS
RESERVOIR ROCK
WATERFLOODING
WETTABILITY