Maximizing the utility of centrifuge capillary pressure/relative permeability experiments

离心机技术是测定油藏岩石样品中毛细管压力-饱和度曲线的标准方法之一。除了毛细压力之外，现代离心机还允许使用毛细压力实验中观察到的瞬变期来确定相对渗透率-通过实施反向数据分析技术，可以使用这一时期的产量与时间的数据来确定相对渗透率曲线。同时确定这两种曲线的主要批评与所获得的曲线的唯一性有关。挪威国家石油公司拥有通过同时离心实验获得的毛细压力/相对渗透率曲线的非常大的数据库，但不知道他们对这些数据的可信度有多大。如果能在一次实验中同时发现相对渗透率和毛细压力，那么用离心机测定这些性质的可信度将大大提高。在所有用于确定相对渗透率的方法中，离心机提供了最好的总体速度和精度。利用挪威国家石油公司广泛的数据库，并与挪威国家石油公司的工作人员合作，将选择一组包括各种岩石物理性质的数据集。将对这些数据进行全面的数值模拟器性能研究，以确定毛管压力和相对渗透率曲线。通过这种方式，数据的有效性将得到验证。此外，将对数据进行研究，以确定优化数据质量的协议。这项研究将使用商业模拟器PORLAB和Sendra进行。石油工业是加拿大的主要财富来源。毛细管压力和相对渗透率是预测可采石油储量的基本属性--任何能够提高这些数据质量的研究都将对这些储量的高效和环境安全开采产生重大影响，因此将为加拿大带来重大经济效益。

One of the standard methods used to determine capillary pressure versus saturation curves in a sample ofpetroleum reservoir rock is the centrifuge technique. In addition to capillary pressure, modern centrifugesallow determination of relative permeability using the transient period observed in capillary pressureexperiments - by implementing an inverse data analysis technique, relative permeability curves can bedetermined using this production versus time data during this period. The main criticisms of determining bothtypes of curves simultaneously are related to the uniqueness of the curves that are obtained. Statoil has a verylarge data base of capillary pressure/relative permeability curves obtained by simultaneous centrifugeexperiments but do not know how much confidence they can place in these data. If it can be shownconclusively that both relative permeability and capillary pressure can be found simultaneously in a singleexperiment, the confidence in using the centrifuge to determine these properties would be greatly enhanced. Ofall the methods used to determine relative permeability, the centrifuge offers the best overall speed andprecision. Making use of Statoil's extensive data base, and in cooperation with Statoil personnel, a collectionof data sets that include a wide range of petrophysical properties will be selected. A comprehensive study ofthe performance of a numerical simulator to determine both capillary pressure and relative permeability curveswill be performed on these data. In this way the validity of the data will be verified. Furthermore, the datawill be studied to determine a protocol for optimizing the quality of the data. The study will be conductedusing commercial simulators, PORLAB© and Sendra©. The petroleum industry is a major source of wealth inCanada. Capillary pressure and relative permeability are fundamental properties essential to the prediction ofrecoverable oil reserves - any research that can improve the quality of these data will have a major impact onthe efficient and environmentally safe recovery of these reserves and will therefore bring major economicbenefits to Canada.