Scaling of counter-current imbibition processes in low-permeability porous media

Zhou, Dengen; Jia, Liping; Kamath, Jairam; Kovscek, Anthony R.

doi:10.1016/s0920-4105(01)00176-0

Cited by 168 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Fischer et al (2006Fischer et al ( , 2008 conducted imbibition experiments for a wider range of viscosity ratios in Berea sandstone and observed the difference in final oil recovery was small (2% OOIP) as well. Zhou et al (2002) conducted imbibition experiments in low-permeability diatomite and reported that the final oil/gas recovery decreased dramatically with the increase in oil-water viscosity ratios. Meng et al (2015 conducted imbibition experiments in unconsolidated porous media.…”

Section: Fluid Viscositymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For scaling of imbibition data over wide range of viscosity ratio, effective relative permeability (or average relative permeability) was included in the some scaling equations (Reis and Cil, 1993;Zhou et al, 2002;Li and Horne, 2006). Since the relative permeability curves are not easily obtained in practice, the effective permeability in scaling equation is usually replaced by a single or average value, such as the average relative permeability behind the imbibition front (Zhou et al, 2002;Mason et al, 2010). However, the correlation function could not closely correlate imbibition data over a wide range of viscosity ratio even if using the optimized fixed values of relative permeability.…”

Section: Fluid Viscositymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The imbibition cell method and weighing method are the most commonly used methods to measure oil production by SI. Some advanced imaged techniques, including X-ray CT scanning (Akin et al, 2000;Zhou et al, 2002) and Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method (Baldwin and Spinler, 2002;Fernø et al, 2013), were applied to detect the fluid distribution in cores. Various boundary conditions were applied in imbibition experiments according to the boundary condition of matrix blocks in fractured reservoirs (Bourblaux, 1990;Standnes, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A critical review on fundamental mechanisms of spontaneous imbibition and the impact of boundary condition, fluid viscosity and wettability

Meng

Liu

Wang

2017

Adv. Geo-Energ. Res.

110

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Spontaneous imbibition (SI) is one of the primary mechanisms of oil production from matrix system in fractured reservoirs. The main driving force for SI is capillary pressure. Researches relating to SI are moving fast. In the past few years, amount of literature on the development of SI with respect to many variables, such as mechanism of imbibition, scaling of imbibition data and wettability of matrix blocks. In this review, we first introduced the fundamental physics mechanism of SI through capillary tube models and micromodels. Then both conventional and more novel experimental methods of measuring oil production are discussed thoughtfully. This is followed by reviewing the oil production performance under various boundary conditions and the characteristic length in scaling equations that have been used to account for different cores shape and boundary conditions. The effect of fluid viscosity on the rate of oil production and final oil recovery as well as the development of viscosity term in the scaling equation are reported. The commonly used methods to quantitatively evaluate the wettability of cores and the SI under mix-and oil-wet conditions are introduced. And last but not least, the methods and mechanism of wettability alteration for enhanced oil recovery in mix-or oil-wet fractured reservoirs are presented.Keywords: Spontaneous imbibition, fractured reservoirs, boundary condition, viscosity ratio, wettability.Citation: Meng, Q., Liu, H., Wang, J. A critical review on fundamental mechanisms of spontaneous imbibition and the impact of boundary condition, fluid viscosity and wettability.

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Section: Fluid Viscositymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fluid Viscositymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A critical review on fundamental mechanisms of spontaneous imbibition and the impact of boundary condition, fluid viscosity and wettability

Meng

Liu

Wang

2017

Adv. Geo-Energ. Res.

110

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“…The imbibition cell allowed direct measurement of the shape and time progression of saturation fronts inside of a porous medium imbibing water spontaneously. Essentially, our experimental results showed that cocurrent imbibition exhibits displacement characteristics that are relatively pistonlike, whereas countercurrent imbibition profiles are much more diffuse (Zhou et al, 2002). We interpreted these measurements to indicate that during cocurrent imbibition water advances through pores and throats relatively uniformly displacing nonwetting fluid.…”

Section: Cocurrent Versus Counter Current Imbibitionmentioning

confidence: 63%

Heavy and Thermal Oil Recovery Production Mechanisms

Kovscek¹,

Castanier²

2003

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“…Such a scaling does not reproduce results for air/water systems, where the viscosity of the nonwetting phase (equivalent to oil in this treatment) becomes negligible. It would be possible to pursue the same approach using other correlations, such as that derived by Zhou et al [2002] that does reduce to an appropriate limit for low nonwetting phase viscosity.…”

Section: New Linear Transfer Functionmentioning

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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Scaling of counter-current imbibition processes in low-permeability porous media

Cited by 168 publications

References 11 publications

A critical review on fundamental mechanisms of spontaneous imbibition and the impact of boundary condition, fluid viscosity and wettability

A critical review on fundamental mechanisms of spontaneous imbibition and the impact of boundary condition, fluid viscosity and wettability

Heavy and Thermal Oil Recovery Production Mechanisms

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

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