Measurement and correlation of conditions for entrapment and mobilization of residual oil. Final report

Technical Report · Tue Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1981

OSTI ID:6127074

Morrow, N R

This report covers a two year research project concerned with factors which affect the entrapment and mobilization of residual oil. The project is composed of six major tasks: (1) capillary number relationships for rock samples; (2) residual oil saturations near the wellbore; (3) residual oil structure; (4) effect of gravity on residual saturation; (5) magnitude of residual oil saturation; and (6) effects of wettability on capillary number relationships. Detailed progress reports are presented for each task. Some of the highlights are: measurements of relationships between the ratio of viscous to capillary forces and the reduction in normal waterflood residual oil for a variety of rock types indicate the relative ease with which residual oil can be immiscibly displaced by a tertiary process; in reducing the amount of trapped oil to 50% of normal residual oil saturation, recovery of continuous oil is significantly easier than mobilization of trapped oil; the relative permeabilities of the water phase at reduced residual oil saturations were found to be independent of the displacement mechanism of oil movement by which the reduced residual saturations were achieved; a technique involving solidification of the immobile oil phase and subsequent separation has been developed and electron micrographs have been made of the solid blobs; gravity forces can become important at the ultralow interfacial tension values encountered such as in surfactant flooding; provided capillary forces are dominant, residual saturation in unconsolidated media is independent of both particle size and size distribution; for velocities ranging from below to well above typical field flow rates, contact angles at roughened low energy surfaces changed by no more than a few degrees.

• Research Organization: New Mexico Inst. of Mining and Technology, Socorro (USA). New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center
• DOE Contract Number: AS01-78ET12077
• OSTI ID: 6127074
• Report Number(s): DOE/ET/12077-T1; EMD-2-68-3302; ON: DE82001940
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020300* -- Petroleum-- Drilling & Production
CAPILLARY FLOW
ENERGY SOURCES
ENHANCED RECOVERY
FLUID FLOW
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
MOBILITY
OIL SATURATION
PETROLEUM
RECOVERY
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
RESIDUAL PETROLEUM
SATURATION
WETTABILITY