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A FRACTAL MODEL OF

PRODUCTION BY
SPONTANEOUS WATER
IMBIBITION
HAIYANG ZHAO, SINOPEC, AND KEWEN LI, SPE, STANDFORD UNIVERSITY. (2009)
SPE 119525
INTRODUCTION

 Spontaneous imbibition is the main mechanism of fluid flow in


naturally fractured reservoirs developed by water injection.
 It is important to characterize the fluid flow during spontaneous
imbibition in order to establish the relationship between
production rate and time.
 Many researchers have studied the spontaneous imbibition in
porous media.
 In this study, the authors reviewed many models reported in the
literature and proposed a model by considering the rock
heterogeneity represented by fractal dimension.
BACKGROUND

 Laughlin, R. D. and Davies, J. E. (1961):

Where R is the recovery by spontaneous imbibition, Ω is a constant associated


with rock/fluid properties, m is the exponent (its definition will be disussed later),
and t is the production time.
In the case in which the gravity force is ignored, the value of m is equal to 0.5 in
many models
 Washburn equation (1921):
It suggests that the depth of penetration (h) of the wetting fluid into a porous medium is
proportional to the square-root of time (t).

Where S is commonly termed the sorption constant


 The Handy Equation (1960):

 The model proposed by Barenblatt et al. Is expressed as follows:


 Zimmerman and Bodvarsson (1991):

The constant ω is expressed as follows:


 Li and Horne (2006):

 Here, R* is the normalized recovery (R*=cR), c is a parameter associated


with the ratio of gravity to capillary pressure. The dimensionless time td is
expressed as follows:
 The generalized recovery model can be reduced as (gravity force neglected):

 All of the above models show that the value of m is equal to 0.5. However
Laughlin and Davies (1961) measured the capillary rise of oil in fibrous textile
wicking and found that the value of m varied from 0.41 to 0.50.
PRODUCTION MODEL

 a model is proposed to correlate production rate with time by considering the


heterogeneity of rock. The production rate, q, by spontaneous imbibition can be
expressed as:

Lenomard (1990) proposed a model to correlate the oil production time according to
fractal geometry:

Where Df is the fractal dimension and represents the heterogeneity of the porous medium.
Camacho-Velazquez et al. (2006) reported a similar relationship between production rate
and time.
 Comparing both previous equations:

 The generalized recovery model (Li and Horne) may be modified by considering the
heterogeneity:

 And accordingly to the production rate equation:


 The Fractal dimension of the rock may be inferred from spontaneous
imbibition test data using the proposed model once the experimental
data of imbibition rate vs. time are measured. Usually 2 < Df < 3.
 The initial water saturation in a porous medium does not affect the
exponent (m) in the relationship between production rate and time.
 The equation was also tested using the experimental data of spontaneous
imbibition in different rocks.
 The values of fractal dimension in the equation were estimated by
spontaneous imbibition data and the results were then compared with the
fractal dimension inferred from capillary pressure data measured using
mercury intrusion technique.
Results

 Experimental data of spontaneous imbibition in different rocks and


different initial water saturation were used to test the production rate
model.
Conclusions

1. A model was proposed to predict production by spontaneous imbibition.


2. The fractal model was verified using spontaneous imbibition data in different
rocks.
3. The values of fractal dimension of core samples may be inferred using
spontaneous imbibition data.
4. The fractal dimension estimated using spontaneous imbibition data was
almost the same as that determined by mercury intrustion approach in Berea
sandstone but different in The Geysers rock
5. There are almost no effects of initial water saturation and wettability on the
value of the exponent (function of fractal dimension) in the power-law
production model, which is not unreasonable.

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