Yildiray Cinar

Permeability Upscaling for Carbonates from the Pore-Scale Using Multi-Scale Xray-CT Images

bility due to large permeability contrasts. The most accurate upscaling technique is employing Darcy’s law. A key part of the study is the establishment of porosity transforms between highresolution and low-resolution images to arrive at a calibrated porosity map to constraint permeability estimates for the whole core.

An Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Crossflow Effects in Two-Phase Displacements

In this paper, we present flow visualization experiments and numerical simulations that demonstrate the combined effects of viscous and capillary forces and gravity segregation on crossflow that occurs in two-phase displacements in layered porous media. We report results of a series of immiscible flooding experiments in 2D, two-layered glass bead models. Favorable mobilityratio imbibition and unfavorable mobility-ratio drainage experiments were performed. We used pre-equilibrated immiscible phases from a ternary isooctane/isopropanol/water system, which allowed control of the interfacial tension (IFT) by varying the isopropanol concentration. Experiments were performed for a wide range of capillary and gravity numbers. The experimental results illustrate the transitions from flow dominated by capillary pressure at high IFT to flow dominated by gravity and viscous forces at low IFT. The experiments also illustrate the complex interplay of capillary, gravity, and viscous forces that controls crossflow. The experimental results confirm that the transition ranges of scaling groups suggested by Zhou et al. (1994) are appropriate/valid. We report also results of simulations of the displacement experiments by two different numerical techniques: finite-difference and streamline methods. The numerical simulation results agree well with experimental observations when gravity and viscous forces were most important. For capillary-dominated flows, the simulation results are in reasonable agreement with experimental observations.

Computation of Relative Permeability from Imaged Fluid Distributions at the Pore Scale

Image-based computations of relative permeability for capillary-dominated quasi-static displacements require a realistic description of the distribution of the fluids in the pore space. The fluid distributions are usually computed directly on the imaged pore space or on simplified representations of the pore space extracted from the images using a wide variety of models which capture the physics of pore-scale displacements. Currently this is only possible for uniform strongly wetting conditions where fluid–fluid and rock–fluid interactions at the pore-scale can be modelled with a degree of certainty. Recent advances in imaging technologies which make it possible to visualize the actual fluid distributions in the pore space have the potential to overcome this limitation by allowing relative permeabilities to be computed directly from the imaged fluid distributions. The present study explores the feasibility of doing this by comparing laboratory measured capillary-dominated drainage relative permeabilities with relative permeabilities computed from micro-CT images of the actual fluid distributions in the same rock. The agreement between the measurements and the fluid image-based computations is encouraging. The paper highlights a number of experimental difficulties encountered in the study which should serve as a useful guide for the design of future studies.

Co-optimizing enhanced oil recovery and CO2 storage by simultaneous water and CO2 injection

This paper presents a numerical simulation study to investigate whether simultaneous water and gas (SWAG) injection can co-optimize CO2 storage and enhanced oil recovery. Compositional displacements in a three-dimensional, layered reservoir model are modeled to examine different injection scenarios for maximizing oil recovery and CO2 storage capacity. The effects of various CO2-water ratios and different miscibility conditions on sweep efficiency, incremental oil recovery and CO2 storage capacity are investigated. Compositional changes of oil and gas phases, in the presence of mobile water in immiscible, near miscible or miscible SWAG injection are examined. Simulation results show that SWAG injection can enhance oil recovery compared to waterflooding and continuous CO2 injection by 6 to 21% the original oil in place. The optimum gas fraction in injection fluid increases as miscibility develops. When CO2 is injected simultaneously with water, 30–60% of injected CO2 can be stored with optimum injection ratios depending on the miscibility condition. On the contrary, in continuous gas injection, both oil recovery and CO2 storage capacity increase with miscibility. The simulation results also reveal that, for the reservoir studied, near miscible SWAG injection yields the highest oil recovery and storage efficiency in shortest operating duration.

Adsorption/desorption characteristics for methane, nitrogen and carbon dioxide of coal samples from Southeast Qinshui Basin, China

This paper presents an experimental and modelling study of the adsorption/desorption of pure gases CH4, CO2 and N2 and their binary and ternary mixtures on coal samples obtained from southeast Qinshui Basin, China. Results show that the adsorbed amounts of N2, CH4 and CO2 have approximate ratios of 1.0:1.3:2.4, respectively. No significant hysteresis from adsorption to desorption is observed for pure N2 and CH4 whereas significant hysteresis is measured for CO2 in CO2-CH4 and CO2-CH4-N2 mixtures and CH4 in the N2- CH4 mixture. The experimental observations are modelled using three different models, namely the extended Langmuir (EL), the Langmuir-based ideal adsorbed solution (L-IAS) and the Dubinlin-Radushkevich-based ideal adsorbed solution (D-R-IAS). The models predict well the experimental observations for desorption tests. But the measurements for the low adsorbate capacity in binary and ternary mixtures are overestimated by the prediction models. It is found that the EL model predicts the CO2-CH4 desorption test better while the D-R-IAS model is the best model for the CO2-CH4-N2 adsorption.

A Semi-Analytical Model for Two Phase Immiscible Flow in Porous Media Honouring Capillary Pressure

This article describes a semi-analytical model for two-phase immiscible flow in porous media. The model incorporates the effect of capillary pressure gradient on fluid displacement. It also includes a correction to the capillarity-free Buckley–Leverett saturation profile for the stabilized-zone around the displacement front and the end-effects near the core outlet. The model is valid for both drainage and imbibition oil–water displacements in porous media with different wettability conditions. A stepwise procedure is presented to derive relative permeabilities from coreflood displacements using the proposed semi-analytical model. The procedure can be utilized for both before and after breakthrough data and hence is capable to generate a continuous relative permeability curve unlike other analytical/semi-analytical approaches. The model predictions are compared with numerical simulations and laboratory experiments. The comparison shows that the model predictions for drainage process agree well with the numerical simulations for different capillary numbers, whereas there is mismatch between the relative permeability derived using the Johnson–Bossler–Naumann (JBN) method and the simulations. The coreflood experiments carried out on a Berea sandstone core suggest that the proposed model works better than the JBN method for a drainage process in strongly wet rocks. Both methods give similar results for imbibition processes.

Experimental study for reducing gas inflow by use of thin spray-on liners in underground coal mines

Abstract This paper presents an investigation of the potential use of thin spray-on liners (TSLs) in underground coal mines as a gas management tool. The coal samples used were taken from a coal mine in Australia. Three different TSLs were examined. The experiments include single phase gas flow tests through intact and treated dry coal samples. Experimental observations indicate that TSLs can reduce gas permeability of coal by up to three orders of magnitude. However, the degree of the impact depends strongly on the type of TSLs. Further, the initial permeability of coal and TSL thickness also affect the efficiency of the process. There is a linear relation between the efficiency of the TSLs in controlling gas flow and their adhesion strength to the coal sample.

Designing for Mixed Wettability

In this paper we describe a technique based on radio frequency plasma treatment in H2O vapour to reproducibly clean and modify the surface energy of clastic and carbonate core material allowing the establishment of well defined wettability conditions. We present micro-tomographic observations of the pore-scale fluid distributions in strongly water wet clastic and carbonate cores. We then establish mixed-wet states in the same cores using controlled hydrophobation. Micro-tomography is again used to reveal the three-dimensional geometry and topology of water and oil wet regions. The tomographic data shows that under water wet conditions at intermediate saturations larger pores are predominantly oil filled while smaller pores remain water wet. We perform displacement experiments using clastic and carbonate cores at well defined wettability conditions and report measurements of resistivity index. These methodologies may provide insight into the role of rock microstructure and surface energy variability in determining recovery and production characteristics of oil and gas reservoirs.

Formation Factor for Heterogeneous Carbonate Rocks Using Multi-scale X-ray CT images

Resistivity measurements play a key role in hydrocarbon in place calculations for oil and gas reservoirs. They are a direct indicator of fluid saturation and connected pore space available in the formation. Carbonate rocks, which host around half of the world’s hydrocarbons, exhibit a wide range of porosities with scales spanning from nanometres to centimetres. The often significant amount of microporosity displayed by Carbonate rocks emphasizes the necessity of an adequate characterization of their micro-features and their contribution to hydrocarbon in place. In this paper we examine upscaling methods to probe formation factor of a fully saturated carbonate sample using an X-ray CT based numerical approach and compare to experimental measurements. Three-dimensional high-resolution X-ray CT enables the numerical calculation of petrophysical properties of interest at the pore scale with resolutions down to a few microns per voxel. For more complex and heterogeneous samples however, a direct calculation of petrophysical properties is not feasible, since the required resolution and a sufficient field of view cannot be obtained simultaneously. Thus an integration of measurements at different scale is required. In this study a carbonate sample of 38mm in diameter is first scanned using the X-ray CT method with a resolution of 26µm. After accompanying experimental measurements on the full plug, four 5mm plugs were drilled vertically from this sample and X-ray CT images of these plugs acquired at resolutions down to 2.74 µm. We calculate the porosity of the sample (macro- and micro-porosities) using the phase separation methods and then predict the formation factor of the sample at several scales using a Laplace solver. The formation factor is calculated by using a general value of m=2 as cementation factor for intermediate porosity voxels. We compare to experimental measurements of formation factor and porosity both at the small plug and full plug scale and find good agreement. To assess the degree of uncertainty of the numerical estimate, we probe the extent of heterogeneity by investigating the size of a representative elementary volume (REV) for formation factor. We find that for the considered heterogeneous carbonate sample, formation factor varies considerably over intervals less than a centimetre. Our results show that this variation could be explained by different cementation exponents applied at the micro-voxel scale, with the exemption of one plug, for which the cementation exponent would have to be unreasonably low. These cementation factors are derived by direct comparison between numerical simulation and experiment. We conclude that for one plug an error in experimental measurement might have occurred. The numerical approach presented here therefore aids in quality control. Excluding this plug in the upscaling procedure improves the agreement with the experimental result for the whole core while still underestimating formation factor. Allowing for a constant m=2 in the simulation at the small scale and using directly the resulting relationship between porosity and formation factor in the upscaling process leads to an overestimation of formation factor.

Experimental Verification of Effect of Size on Drainage Capillary Pressure Computed from Digitized Tomographic Images

This paper presents comparisons between drainage capillary pressure curves computed directly from 3D micro-tomographic images (micro-CT) and laboratory measurements conducted on the same core samples. It is now possible to calculate a wide range of petrophysical and transport properties directly from micro-CT images or from equivalent network models extracted from these images. Capillary pressure is sensitive to rock microstructure and the comparisons presented are the first direct validation of image based computations. The measured data include centrifuge and mercury injection drainage capillary pressure for fired Berea, Bentheimer and Obernkirchner sandstones and unfired Mount Gambier carbonate. The measurements cover a wide range of porosities and permeabilities. The measurements were made on core samples with different diameters (2.5 cm, 1.5 cm, 1 cm and 0.5 cm) to assess the effect of up-scaling on capillary pressure measurements. The smallest diameter samples were also used to obtain the 3D micro-CT images. Good agreement was obtained between the experimental measurements and direct computations on 3D micro-CT images.