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Ekofisk chalk: core measurements, stochastic reconstruction, network modeling and simulation

Abstract

This dissertation deals with (1) experimental measurements on petrophysical, reservoir engineering and morphological properties of Ekofisk chalk, (2) numerical simulation of core flood experiments to analyze and improve relative permeability data, (3) stochastic reconstruction of chalk samples from limited morphological information, (4) extraction of pore space parameters from the reconstructed samples, development of network model using pore space information, and computation of petrophysical and reservoir engineering properties from network model, and (5) development of 2D and 3D idealized fractured reservoir models and verification of the applicability of several widely used conventional up scaling techniques in fractured reservoir simulation. Experiments have been conducted on eight Ekofisk chalk samples and porosity, absolute permeability, formation factor, and oil-water relative permeability, capillary pressure and resistivity index are measured at laboratory conditions. Mercury porosimetry data and backscatter scanning electron microscope images have also been acquired for the samples. A numerical simulation technique involving history matching of the production profiles is employed to improve the relative permeability curves and to analyze hysteresis of the Ekofisk chalk samples. The technique was found to be a powerful tool to supplement the uncertainties in experimental measurements. Porosity and correlation statistics obtained from backscatter scanning electron microscope images are used  More>>
Publication Date:
Jul 01, 2002
Product Type:
Thesis/Dissertation
Report Number:
NEI-NO-1389
Resource Relation:
Other Information: TH: Thesis (Dr Ing); 441 refs., 198 figs., 42 tabs.; PBD: 2002
Subject:
02 PETROLEUM; ENERGY; NORWAY; NORTH SEA; OFFSHORE DRILLING; OFFSHORE OPERATIONS; PETROLEUM; RESERVOIR ENGINEERING; RESERVOIR ROCK; FRACTURED RESERVOIRS; GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
OSTI ID:
20283045
Research Organizations:
Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Trondheim (Norway)
Country of Origin:
Norway
Language:
English
Other Identifying Numbers:
Other: ISBN 84-471-5416-1; TRN: NO0205271
Availability:
Available to ETDE participating countries only(see www.etde.org); commercial reproduction prohibited; OSTI as DE20283045
Submitting Site:
NW
Size:
v pages
Announcement Date:
Dec 19, 2002

Citation Formats

Talukdar, Saifullah. Ekofisk chalk: core measurements, stochastic reconstruction, network modeling and simulation. Norway: N. p., 2002. Web.
Talukdar, Saifullah. Ekofisk chalk: core measurements, stochastic reconstruction, network modeling and simulation. Norway.
Talukdar, Saifullah. 2002. "Ekofisk chalk: core measurements, stochastic reconstruction, network modeling and simulation." Norway.
@misc{etde_20283045,
title = {Ekofisk chalk: core measurements, stochastic reconstruction, network modeling and simulation}
author = {Talukdar, Saifullah}
abstractNote = {This dissertation deals with (1) experimental measurements on petrophysical, reservoir engineering and morphological properties of Ekofisk chalk, (2) numerical simulation of core flood experiments to analyze and improve relative permeability data, (3) stochastic reconstruction of chalk samples from limited morphological information, (4) extraction of pore space parameters from the reconstructed samples, development of network model using pore space information, and computation of petrophysical and reservoir engineering properties from network model, and (5) development of 2D and 3D idealized fractured reservoir models and verification of the applicability of several widely used conventional up scaling techniques in fractured reservoir simulation. Experiments have been conducted on eight Ekofisk chalk samples and porosity, absolute permeability, formation factor, and oil-water relative permeability, capillary pressure and resistivity index are measured at laboratory conditions. Mercury porosimetry data and backscatter scanning electron microscope images have also been acquired for the samples. A numerical simulation technique involving history matching of the production profiles is employed to improve the relative permeability curves and to analyze hysteresis of the Ekofisk chalk samples. The technique was found to be a powerful tool to supplement the uncertainties in experimental measurements. Porosity and correlation statistics obtained from backscatter scanning electron microscope images are used to reconstruct microstructures of chalk and particulate media. The reconstruction technique involves a simulated annealing algorithm, which can be constrained by an arbitrary number of morphological parameters. This flexibility of the algorithm is exploited to successfully reconstruct particulate media and chalk samples using more than one correlation functions. A technique based on conditional simulated annealing has been introduced for exact reproduction of vuggy porosity in chalk in the form of foraminifer shells. A hybrid reconstruction technique that initializes the simulated annealing reconstruction with input generated using the Gaussian random field method has also been introduced. The technique was found to accelerate significantly the rate of convergence of the simulated annealing method. This finding is important because the main advantage of the simulated annealing method, namely its ability to impose a variety of reconstruction constraints, is usually compromised by its very slow rate of convergence. Absolute permeability, formation factor and mercury-air capillary pressure are computed from simple network models. The input parameters for the network models were extracted from a reconstructed chalk sample. The computed permeability, formation factor and mercury-air capillary pressure correspond well with the experimental data. The predictive power of a network model for chalk is further extended through incorporating important pore-level displacement phenomena and realistic description of pore space geometry and topology. Limited results show that the model may be used to compute absolute and relative permeabilities, capillary pressure, formation factor, resistivity index and saturation exponent. The above findings suggest that the network modeling technique may be used for prediction of petrophysical and reservoir engineering properties of chalk. Further works are necessary and an outline is given with considerable details. Two 2D, one 3D and a dual-porosity fractured reservoir models have been developed and an imbibition process involving water displacing oil is simulated at various injection rates and with different oil-to-water viscosity ratios using four widely used conventional up scaling techniques. The up scaling techniques are the Kyte and Berry, Pore Volume Weighted, Weighted Relative Permeability, and Stone. The results suggest that up scaling of fractured reservoirs may be possible using the conventional techniques. Kyte and Berry technique was found to be the most effective in all situations. However, further investigations are necessary using realistic description of fracture length, orientation, connectivity, aperture, spacing, etc. (author)}
place = {Norway}
year = {2002}
month = {Jul}
}