Wettability literature survey - Part 6: The effects of wettability on waterflooding
The wettability of a core will strongly affect its waterflood behavior and relative permeability because wettability is a major factor controlling the location, flow, and distribution of fluids in a porous medium. When a strongly water-wet system is waterflooded, recovery at water breakthrough is high, with little additional oil production after breakthrough. Conversely, water breakthrough occurs much earlier in strongly oil-wet systems, with most of the oil recovered during a long period of simultaneous oil and water production. Waterfloods are less efficient in oil-wet systems compared with water-wet ones because more water must be injected to recover a given amount of oil. This paper examines the effects of wettability on waterflooding, including the effects on the breakthrough and residual oil saturations (ROS's) and the changes in waterflood behavior caused by core cleaning. Also covered are waterfloods in heterogeneously wetted systems. Waterfloods in fractionally wetted sandpacks, where the size of the individual water-wet and oil-wet surfaces are on the order of a single pore, behave like waterfloods in uniformly wetted systems. In a mixed-wettability system, the continuous oil-wet paths in the larger pores alter the relative permeability curves and allow the system to be waterflooded to a very low ROS after the injection of many PV's of water.
- Research Organization:
- Conoco Inc.
- OSTI ID:
- 5463141
- Journal Information:
- J. Pet. Technol.; (United States), Journal Name: J. Pet. Technol.; (United States) Vol. 39:12; ISSN JPTJA
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
020300* -- Petroleum-- Drilling & Production
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
DRILL CORES
ENERGY SOURCES
ENHANCED RECOVERY
FLUID FLOW
FLUID INJECTION
FLUID MECHANICS
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
HETEROGENEOUS EFFECTS
HYDRODYNAMICS
LIQUID FLOW
MECHANICS
MICROSTRUCTURE
OIL WELLS
PETROLEUM
POROSITY
RECOVERY
RESERVOIR ROCK
RESIDUAL PETROLEUM
ROCKS
SANDSTONES
SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
STIMULATION
WATERFLOODING
WELL STIMULATION
WELLS
WETTABILITY