Interrelationship of Wettability, Initial Water Saturation, Aging Time, and Oil Recovery by Spontaneous Imbibition and Waterflooding

Zhou, Xianmin; Morrow, Norman R.; Ma, Sai

doi:10.2118/35436-ms

Cited by 56 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The inverse Bond number is defined as Surfactant-aided gravity drainage of oil from matrix blocks of fractured reservoirs is driven by a combination of capillary, gravity, diffusive, and viscous forces. Capillarity-controlled imbibition of brine (surfactant-free) into matrix blocks has been studied by many (Zhou et al 1996;Morrow and Mason 2001;Mattax and Kyle 1962;Ma et al 1999;Cuiec et al 1994). Ma et al (1999) proposed a scaling group that is given as:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oil Recovery From Fractured Carbonates by Surfactant-Aided Gravity Drainage: Laboratory Experiments and Mechanistic Simulations

Adibhatla

Mohanty

2008

SPE Reservoir Evaluation &Amp; Engineering

119

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Waterflooding recovers little oil from naturally fractured carbonate reservoirs if the matrix is oil-wet and fracture intensity is high. Laboratory experiments and mechanistic simulations have been conducted to understand the injection of dilute anionic surfactant solutions into oil-wet, fractured reservoirs. In this process, surfactant diffuses into the matrix, lowering the interfacial tension (IFT) and contact angle, which decreases the capillary pressure and increases oil relative permeability, enabling gravity to drain up the oil. The rate of oil recovery increases with an increase in matrix permeability, a decrease in initial gas saturation, a decrease of fracture height or spacing, and an increase in the wettabilityaltering capabilities of the surfactant. Increasing the surfactant concentration does not necessarily enhance the oil recovery rate, because IFT and wettability alterations are not linearly related to surfactant concentration. Adsorption of anionic surfactants on calcite can be suppressed with an increase in pH and a decrease in salinity.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oil Recovery From Fractured Carbonates by Surfactant-Aided Gravity Drainage: Laboratory Experiments and Mechanistic Simulations

Adibhatla

Mohanty

2008

SPE Reservoir Evaluation &Amp; Engineering

119

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“…The contact angles between oilwater interface and the sandstone surface treated with POE(1), DTAB, and GD70 are 63.9°, 85.0°and 121.2°, respectively. It is obvious that a conclusion could be drawn from these results, i.e., the stronger hydrophilicity sandstone surface has a higher imbibition recovery [3]. Figure 7 shows the oil recoveries by spontaneous imbibition under different wettabilities adjusted by different surfactants at room temperature (20°C).…”

Section: Effect Of Surfactant-induced Wettability Alteration On Oil Rmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Wettability is an important indicator of reservoir physical properties, which has a great effect on oil recovery during the process of enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Many studies have investigated the mechanisms for wettability alteration of oil-wet sandstone surfaces induced by different surfactants and the relationship between reservoir wettability and oil recovery by spontaneous imbibition and waterflooding in the past few years [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Determination of the effect of reservoir wettability on oil recovery is a long-standing problem during the process of oil exploration. Zhou et al [3] studied the relationship between the reservoir wettability and oil recovery by spontaneous imbibition and found that oil recovery by spontaneous imbibition increases with the increase of water-wetness of the solid surface. It is intuitively believed that the more water-wet the reservoir is, the higher the waterflooding recovery is.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Surfactant‐Induced Wettability Alteration of Oil‐Wet Sandstone Surface: Mechanisms and Its Effect on Oil Recovery

Hou

Wang

Cao³

et al. 2015

J Surfact & Detergents

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Different analytical methods were utilized to investigate the mechanisms for wettability alteration of oil‐wet sandstone surfaces induced by different surfactants and the effect of reservoir wettability on oil recovery. The cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) is more effective than the nonionic surfactant octylphenol ethoxylate (TX‐100) and the anionic surfactant sodium laureth sulfate (POE(1)) in altering the wettability of oil‐wet sandstone surfaces. The cationic surfactant CTAB was able to desorb negatively charged carboxylates of crude oil from the solid surface in an irreversible way by the formation of ion pairs. For the nonionic surfactant TX‐100 and the anionic surfactant POE(1), the wettability of oil‐wet sandstone surfaces is changed by the adsorption of surfactants on the solid surface. The different surfactants were added into water to vary the core surface wettability, while maintaining a constant interfacial tension. The more water‐wet core showed a higher oil recovery by spontaneous imbibition. The neutral wetting micromodel showed the highest oil recovery by waterflooding and the oil‐wet model showed the maximum residual oil saturation among all the models.

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“…Furthermore matrix permeabilities of 0.1 mdarcy or lower are not unusual. For mixedwet systems imbibition is much slower and a may be in the range 10 À5 -10 À4 [Zhou et al, 2000]. Thus a realistic range of b is 10 À11 -10 À7 s À1 .…”

Section: Fracture Flow Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Streamline‐based dual‐porosity simulation of reactive transport and flow in fractured reservoirs

Donato

Blunt

2004

Water Resources Research

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[1] We present a streamline-based formulation to model two processes: transport of a tracer undergoing rate-limited sorption and two-phase (water/oil or air/water) transport in fractured systems, using a dual-porosity approach. We show that these two processes can be simulated using mathematically equivalent formulations. In both cases the system conceptually has two components: a flowing fraction connected to stagnant regions with transfer between the two domains. Streamlines capture movement through the flowing fraction. Fluid transfer between flowing and stagnant regions enters as a source/sink term in the one-dimensional transport equations along a streamline. To model flow and transport in fractured systems, we develop a new formulation for the transfer function that matches experimental imbibition data. Then we illustrate the streamline approach with synthetic reservoir problems. We use a finely gridded (over one million grid blocks) threedimensional domain with a highly heterogeneous permeability field to study both fracture flow and tracer transport. We find breakthrough curves that are consistent with anomalous transport described by an exponent that characterizes the longtime tail of the transit time distribution. For fracture flow we demonstrate that the speed of fluid advance in the fractures is controlled by the imbibition rate. The run times for the simulations scale approximately linearly with system size, making the method appropriate for the simulation of large numerical models.

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Interrelationship of Wettability, Initial Water Saturation, Aging Time, and Oil Recovery by Spontaneous Imbibition and Waterflooding

Cited by 56 publications

References 7 publications

Oil Recovery From Fractured Carbonates by Surfactant-Aided Gravity Drainage: Laboratory Experiments and Mechanistic Simulations

Oil Recovery From Fractured Carbonates by Surfactant-Aided Gravity Drainage: Laboratory Experiments and Mechanistic Simulations

Surfactant‐Induced Wettability Alteration of Oil‐Wet Sandstone Surface: Mechanisms and Its Effect on Oil Recovery

Streamline‐based dual‐porosity simulation of reactive transport and flow in fractured reservoirs

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