Influence of Clay Wettability Alteration on Relative Permeability
Abstract
Abstract Understanding the wettability of porous materials is important to model fluid flow in the subsurface. One of the critical factors that influences wetting in real reservoirs is the composition of geologic materials. The wetting properties for clay minerals can have a particularly strong impact on flow and transport. In this work, we analyze the chemical composition of a Mt. Simon sandstone core to resolve the microscopic structure of clay regions and assess how alterations to the local wetting properties influence multiphase transport based on core flooding experiments and relative permeability simulations. We show that whichever fluid has greater affinity toward clay minerals will tend to accumulate within these high surface area regions, leading to dramatic shifts in the relative permeability. This work establishes the essential importance of the mineral composition and associated wetting properties in the modeling of flow and transport in reservoir‐scale systems.
- Authors:
-
[2];
[5];
[1]
- Department of Mining &, Minerals Engineering Virginia Tech Blacksburg VA USA
- Department of Mining &, Minerals Engineering Virginia Tech Blacksburg VA USA, Advanced Research Computing, Virginia Tech Blacksburg VA USA
- School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering University of New South Wales Sydney New South Wales Australia
- Department of Applied Mathematics Australian National University Canberra Australian Captial Territory Australia
- Research and Innovation Center National Energy Technology Laboratory Morgantown WV USA, Leidos Research Support Team Morgantown WV USA
- Research and Innovation Center National Energy Technology Laboratory Morgantown WV USA
- Publication Date:
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1664618
- Grant/Contract Number:
- DE‐FE0026825
- Resource Type:
- Publisher's Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Volume: 47 Journal Issue: 18; Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Citation Formats
Fan, Ming, McClure, James E., Armstrong, Ryan T., Shabaninejad, Mehdi, Dalton, Laura E., Crandall, Dustin, and Chen, Cheng. Influence of Clay Wettability Alteration on Relative Permeability. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1029/2020GL088545.
Fan, Ming, McClure, James E., Armstrong, Ryan T., Shabaninejad, Mehdi, Dalton, Laura E., Crandall, Dustin, & Chen, Cheng. Influence of Clay Wettability Alteration on Relative Permeability. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL088545
Fan, Ming, McClure, James E., Armstrong, Ryan T., Shabaninejad, Mehdi, Dalton, Laura E., Crandall, Dustin, and Chen, Cheng. Mon .
"Influence of Clay Wettability Alteration on Relative Permeability". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL088545.
@article{osti_1664618,
title = {Influence of Clay Wettability Alteration on Relative Permeability},
author = {Fan, Ming and McClure, James E. and Armstrong, Ryan T. and Shabaninejad, Mehdi and Dalton, Laura E. and Crandall, Dustin and Chen, Cheng},
abstractNote = {Abstract Understanding the wettability of porous materials is important to model fluid flow in the subsurface. One of the critical factors that influences wetting in real reservoirs is the composition of geologic materials. The wetting properties for clay minerals can have a particularly strong impact on flow and transport. In this work, we analyze the chemical composition of a Mt. Simon sandstone core to resolve the microscopic structure of clay regions and assess how alterations to the local wetting properties influence multiphase transport based on core flooding experiments and relative permeability simulations. We show that whichever fluid has greater affinity toward clay minerals will tend to accumulate within these high surface area regions, leading to dramatic shifts in the relative permeability. This work establishes the essential importance of the mineral composition and associated wetting properties in the modeling of flow and transport in reservoir‐scale systems.},
doi = {10.1029/2020GL088545},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
number = 18,
volume = 47,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Sep 14 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Mon Sep 14 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}
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