Unconventional/complex reservoirs

Workflow Improves Assessment of Permeability in Tight Rock Samples

This paper introduces new methods to perform reliable permeability and saturation-dependent relative permeability measurements in organic-rich mudrock core samples using a pressure-decay setup.

Fig. 1—Experimental setup used for pressure-decay measurements to estimate permeability.
Fig. 1—Experimental setup used for pressure-decay measurements to estimate permeability.
Source: URTeC 4011664.

Understanding fluid-flow characteristics in reservoir rocks requires a reliable assessment of permeability and saturation-dependent relative permeability, which is also essential for quantifying primary recovery mechanisms and enhancing successful exploitation of reserves. The complete paper introduces new methods to perform reliable permeability and saturation-dependent relative permeability measurements in organic-rich mudrock core samples using a pressure-decay setup. The introduced method is applicable to samples of any shape.

Introduction

The authors address the challenges associated with the long duration of saturating organic-rich mudrocks, introducing an integrated workflow of saturation and permeability measurement that adopts a setup to saturate core samples and the concept of pressure-decay setup for the purpose of fast and reliable assessment of absolute permeability and saturation-dependent relative permeability. This saturation technique was adopted to partially saturate the tight rock samples for relative permeability measurements.

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