Relative Permeability Modification in Gas-Liquid Systems Through Wettability Alteration to Intermediate Gas-Wetting

Author(s):  
Guo-Qing Tang ◽  
Abbas Firoozabadi
2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (03) ◽  
pp. 181-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aniello Mennella ◽  
Luisa Chiappa ◽  
Thomas P. Lockhart ◽  
Giovanni Burrafato

SPE Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (03) ◽  
pp. 1234-1247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuangmei Zou ◽  
Ryan T. Armstrong

Summary Wettability is a major factor that influences multiphase flow in porous media. Numerous experimental studies have reported wettability effects on relative permeability. Laboratory determination for the impact of wettability on relative permeability continues to be a challenge because of difficulties with quantifying wettability alteration, correcting for capillary-end effect, and observing pore-scale flow regimes during core-scale experiments. Herein, we studied the impact of wettability alteration on relative permeability by integrating laboratory steady-state experiments with in-situ high-resolution imaging. We characterized wettability alteration at the core scale by conventional laboratory methods and used history matching for relative permeability determination to account for capillary-end effect. We found that because of wettability alteration from water-wet to mixed-wet conditions, oil relative permeability decreased while water relative permeability slightly increased. For the mixed-wet condition, the pore-scale data demonstrated that the interaction of viscous and capillary forces resulted in viscous-dominated flow, whereby nonwetting phase was able to flow through the smaller regions of the pore space. Overall, this study demonstrates how special-core-analysis (SCAL) techniques can be coupled with pore-scale imaging to provide further insights on pore-scale flow regimes during dynamic coreflooding experiments.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 4688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faaiz Al-shajalee ◽  
Colin Wood ◽  
Quan Xie ◽  
Ali Saeedi

Excessive water production is becoming common in many gas reservoirs. Polymers have been used as relative permeability modifiers (RPM) to selectively reduce water production with minimum effect on the hydrocarbon phase. This manuscript reports the results of an experimental study where we examined the effect of initial rock permeability on the outcome of an RPM treatment for a gas/water system. The results show that in high-permeability rocks, the treatment may have no significant effect on either the water and gas relative permeabilities. In a moderate-permeability case, the treatment was found to reduce water relative permeability significantly but improve gas relative permeability, while in low-permeability rocks, it resulted in greater reduction in gas relative permeability than that of water. This research reveals that, in an RPM treatment, more important than thickness of the adsorbed polymer layer ( e ) is the ratio of this thickness on rock pore radius ( e r ).


Author(s):  
Pouriya Esmaeilzadeh ◽  
Mohammad Taghi Sadeghi ◽  
Alireza Bahramian

Many gas condensate reservoirs suffer a loss in productivity owing to accumulation of liquid in near-wellbore region. Wettability alteration of reservoir rock from liquid-wetting to gas-wetting appears to be a promising technique for elimination of the condensate blockage. In this paper, we report use of a superamphiphobic nanofluid containing TiO2 nanoparticles and low surface energy materials as polytetrafluoroethylene and trichloro(1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorooctyl)silane to change the wettability of the carbonate reservoir rock to ultra gas-wetting. The utilization of nanofluid in the wettability alteration of carbonate rocks to gas-wetting in core scale has not been reported already and is still an ongoing issue. Contact angle measurements was conducted to investigate the wettability of carbonate core plugs in presence of nanofluid. It was found that the novel formulated nanofluid used in this work can remarkably change the wettability of the rock from both strongly water- and oil-wetting to highly gas-wetting condition. The adsorption of nanoparticles on the rock and formation of nano/submicron surface roughness was verified by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Stylus Profilometer (SP) analyses. Using free imbibition test, we showed that the nanofluid can imbibe interestingly into the core sample, resulting in notable ultimate gas-condensate liquid recovery. Moreover, we studied the effect of nanofluid on relative permeability and recovery performance of gas/water and gas/oil systems for a carbonate core. The result of coreflooding tests demonstrates that the relative permeability of both gas and liquid phase increased significantly as well as the liquid phase recovery enhanced greatly after the wettability alteration to gas-wetting.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Fan ◽  
James E. McClure ◽  
Ryan T. Armstrong ◽  
Mehdi Shabaninejad ◽  
Laura E. Dalton ◽  
...  

1973 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 221-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.R. Morrow ◽  
P.J. Cram ◽  
F.G. McCaffery

Abstract Various nitrogen-, oxygen- and sulfur-containing compounds native to crude oils were screened for their effect on wettability as measured by contact angle. Solid substrates of quartz, calcite, and dolomite crystals were used to represent reservoir rock surfaces. With water and decane as liquids, contact angles were measured after a given polar compound was added to the oil phase. Contact angles measured at the two types of carbonate surfaces were generally similar. None of the nitrogen or sulfur compounds studied gave contact angles greater than 66 degrees on either quartz or carbonates. Of the oxygen-containing compounds, octanoic acid gave the widest range of contact angle - 0 degrees to 145 degrees on dolomite - over a molar concentration range up to 0.1. Capillary - pressure and relative-permeability curves were obtained for water and solutions of octanoic acid in oil, using packings of powdered dolomite as the porous medium. Because of a slow reaction between dolomite and octanoic acid, which was not revealed by standard contact angle studies, special precautions were needed to ensure satisfactory wettability control during displacement tests. Capillary-pressure drainage curves were measured at six contact angles, ranging from 0 degrees to 140 degrees. Drainage-imbibition cycles for three packings of distinctly different particle size were measured at contact angles of 0 degrees and 49 degrees. The effect of contact angle on imbibition capillary pressures was close to that found previously for porous polytetra-fluoroethylene, whereas there was comparatively polytetra-fluoroethylene, whereas there was comparatively less effect on drainage behavior-steady-state relative permeability curves exhibited distinct differences for contact angles of 15 degrees, 100 degrees and 155 degrees. Introduction Waterflooding is the most successful and widely applied improved recovery technique. Its application in Alberta has, on the average, more than doubled the recovery obtained by primary depletion. However, even after waterflooding, it is estimated that two-thirds of the discovered oil remains unrecovered. Interfacial forces acting during waterflooding lead to the entrapment of large quantities of residual oil in the swept zones. Considerable attention has been paid to recovering this oil through new recovery methods in which the interface is eliminated as in miscible processes, or the interfacial tension is drastically lowered, as in surfactant floods. Such processes involve a high initial cost for an injected solvent or surfactant bank. Recently released information on a variety of such improved recovery techniques has not been altogether encouraging with regard to developing economical processes. A distinct alternative to eliminating the interface is to understand it and learn how it can be manipulated to give increased waterflood recoveries. A prospect for improved recovery at interfacial tensions of the order normally encountered in reservoirs lies in a favorable adjustment of wettability by incorporating small amounts of low-cost additives in the floodwater. A first step in developing the technology of improved recovery by wettability alteration is to determine the effect of wettability alteration on displacement in systems of uniform wettability. It has been shown that, even in the "near miscible" surfactant processes, wettability can still have a significant influence on the extent to which interfacial tension must be lowered in order to mobilize residual oil. At the time when waterflooding first found widespread use, wettability was recognized as a variable that might well have a significant influence on recovery performance. Reservoir wettability and the role of wettability in displacement has been the subject of some 50 or so publications. Even so, many aspects of wettability are not well understood and there is no general agreement on a satisfactory method of characterizing it. Opinions as to the optimum wettability condition for recovery cover the spectrum from strongly water-wet through weakly water-wet or intermediately wet to strongly oil-wet. It has recently been suggested that a mixed wettability condition can give high ultimate recoveries. SPEJ P. 221


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