Estimation of fracture relative permeabilities from unsteady state corefloods


Akin S.

JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, vol.30, no.1, pp.1-14, 2001 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 30 Issue: 1
  • Publication Date: 2001
  • Doi Number: 10.1016/s0920-4105(01)00097-3
  • Journal Name: JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.1-14
  • Keywords: fracture, relative permeability, capillary pressure, numerical simulation, DISPLACEMENT EXPERIMENTS, CAPILLARY-PRESSURE, POROUS-MEDIA, FLOW, RESERVOIRS, FLUID
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

A methodology to test the possible deviations of fracture relative permeabilities from straight-line relationship with saturation is discussed. It is shown that with matrix relative permeability data known, it is possible to obtain fracture relative permeabilities by history matching experimental data with double porosity numerical models output. Rather than linear saturation dependence, fracture relative permeability is a power law function of the corresponding phase saturation. The impact of several important parameters like double porosity formulation, capillary pressure and shape factor is discussed. It has been found that double porosity formulations (other than the double permeability model) could represent the flow in a fractured medium. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.