Oil Displacement by Water in Vuggy Fractured Porous Media SPE 69637

Cruz-Hernández, J. Islas-Juárez, R. Pérez-Rosales, C. Rivas-Gómez, S. Piñeda-Muñoz, A. González-Guevara, J.A.

Oil Displacement by Water in Vuggy Fractured Porous Media SPE 69637 - Dallas, Texas Society of Petroleum Engineers 2001 - Cruz-Hernández, J. .

In this paper experimental results obtained for the oil displacement by water within a two-dimensional vuggy fractured porous cell are presented. The experiments were carried out with an acrylic cell, where fractures were represented by channels of 1.6 mm wide, 1.2 mm deep and 19 cm long, whereas the vugs were represented by cylinders of 1 cm diameter and 1.2 mm deep. The experimental procedure is as follows: the cell, saturated 100% with oil was placed horizontally and at time t=0 water was injected at a constant rate. Photographs were taken to follow the water front in the cell; then, the area corresponding to oil and water was measured. In this way the water saturation in the cell was determined. This water saturation is equal to the oil recovery, considering oil and water as incompressible fluids. Based on the experimental results, a theoretical model was developed. This model considers that the porous space is constituted by two regions: one that can conduct fluids, called flow region and a stagnant region that interchange matter with the flow region through a diffusion-like process. Analytical solutions for water saturation and normalized oil recovery are presented. The model fitted in a reasonable way the experimental data of normalized oil recovery, indicating that the theoretical model can be a useful tool to explain oil recovery processes in vuggy fractured reservoirs.


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