Abstract:The main focus of the paper is to introduce a new approach at studying and modelling the relationship of initial water saturation profile and capillarity in water-wet hydrocarbon reservoirs, and describe the available measurement methods and possible applications. As a side track it aims to highlight a set of derivable parameters of mercury capillary curves using the Thomeer-method. Since the widely used mercury capillary pressure curves themselves can lead to over-, or underestimations regarding in-place and technical volumes and misinterpreted reservoir behaviour, the need for a proper capillary curve is reasonable. Combining the results of mercury and centrifuge capillary curves could yield a capillary curve preserving the strengths of both methods, while overcoming their weaknesses. Mercury injection capillary curves were normalized by using the irreducible water saturations derived from centrifuge capillary pressure measurements of the same core plug, and this new, combined capillary curve was applied for engineering calculations in order to make comparisons with other approaches. The most significant benefit of this approach is, that all of the measured data needed for a valid drainage capillary pressure curve represents the very same sample piece.