Assessing the relative permeability of heterogeneous reservoir rock

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:372429

Jakobsen, S R; Ingsoey, P; Braun, T; Guo, Y; Aga, M

Reservoir engineers are often faced with heterogeneous core material, for which conventional methods of estimating relative permeability are susceptible to error and may lead to incorrect conclusions regarding displacement efficiency, wettability and reservoir performance. This paper focuses on new techniques for judging the validity of relative permeability data obtained on heterogeneous cores. Numerical simulation is used to quantitatively analyze the impact of typical heterogeneities. For unsteady-state tests analyzed by conventional methods, it is shown that typical heterogeneities influence relative permeability in a systematic way, and that parts of the measured curves still may provide valid data. The error introduced by heterogeneities is quantified and correlated with the Dykstra parson coefficient. Further, it is shown that the steady-state technique is more robust than the unsteady-state measurements in case of stratified material.

• OSTI ID: 372429
• Report Number(s): CONF-9410272--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
03 NATURAL GAS
CALCULATION METHODS
DRILL CORES
NATURAL GAS DEPOSITS
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
PERMEABILITY
PETROLEUM DEPOSITS
RESERVOIR ROCK