Steady-State Relative Permeability Measurements of Tight and Shale Rocks Considering Capillary End Effect
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Abstract
Relative permeability (kr) data are the key factors for describing the behaviour of the multi-phase flow in porous media. During the kr measurements of low-permeability rocks, high capillary pressure can cause a significant liquid hold-up at the core outlet. This liquid hold-up, which is known as capillary end effect (CEE), is the main difficulty for laboratory measurements of relative permeability (kr) for tight and shale rocks. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to correct the CEE during the steady-state relative permeability (SS-kr) measurements. The integrity of the proposed method is evaluated by a set of artificially generated data and the experimental SS-kr data of an Eagle Ford shale sample. It is shown that accurate kr data can be obtained using the proposed technique. This technique can be used to estimate reliable kr data without any saturation profile measurement equipment, such as CT scan or MRI.
Keywords
Relative permeability Shale rock Capillary end effect Unconventional reservoirs Steady stateList of symbols
- A
Area
- K
Absolute permeability
- q
Flow rate
- S
Saturation
- F
Liquid/gas flow rate ratio
- P
Pressure
- L
Length
- x
Distance
- F
Liquid/gas flow rate ratio
- \( S_{\text{o}}^{*} \)
Wetting phase (oil) saturation
- \( \overline{S}_{\text{o}} \)
Average wetting phase (oil) saturation
- IFT
Interfacial tension
- μ
Viscosity
Subscript
- g
Gas
- o
Oil
- c
Capillary pressure
- or
Residual oil
- gr
Residual gas
- ro
Oil relative permeability
- rg
Gas relative permeability
- out
Outlet
- Exp
Experimental
- CEE
Capillary end effect
- unaf
Unaffected
- t
Total
- r
Relative
Abbreviations
- CEE
Capillary end effect
- SS
Steady state
- LGR
Liquid/gas flow rate ratio
Notes
Acknowledgements
This study was conducted as a part of the Unconventional Gas and Gas-condensate Recovery Project at Heriot-Watt University. This research project is sponsored by Daikin, Dong Energy, Ecopetrol/Equion, ExxonMobil, GDF, INPEX, JX-Nippon, Petrobras, RWE, Saudi-Aramco and TOTAL, whose contribution is gratefully acknowledged.
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