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A New Approach to 3D Saturation Height Modeling by Coupling a Capillary Pressure Model with Pore Throat Size Distribution

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Abstract

Propagation and upscaling of water saturation in a geological model are crucial in reservoir evaluation and volumetric calculations. Upscaling of saturation in heterogeneous carbonate reservoirs poses significant problems due to extensive lateral variations in reservoir properties. In this study, a new approach was developed for 3D saturation height modeling based on the relationship of pore throat size distribution (PTSD) with porosity and permeability via the Winland equation. An existing capillary pressure model developed based on fractal theory was implemented to model the capillary pressure measurements in various carbonate core plug samples. The saturations predicted by the proposed model were cross-checked against the saturations derived from petrophysical logs. The results were also compared with some of the most widely applied saturation height models, including the J-Function, Equivalent Radius, Brooks–Corey, and Thomeer’s approach. The predicted saturations from the PTSD method agreed well with the log data, providing superior and more reasonable results compared to other methodologies. The PTSD model was able to capture successfully the reservoir dynamics and it correlated reasonably the saturation trends with height in all the drilled wells and over the entire reservoir.

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Notes

  1. 1 mD = 1millidarcy = 0.986923 × 10−15 m2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pars Petro Zagros (PPZ) Company, Tehran, Iran

    Hossein Safari & Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Hashemi

  2. Institute of Petroleum Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Mohsen Faramarzi-Palangar, Omid Neisarifam & Behanm Sedaee

Authors
  1. Hossein Safari
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  2. Mohsen Faramarzi-Palangar
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  3. Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Hashemi
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  4. Omid Neisarifam
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  5. Behanm Sedaee
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Correspondence to Mohsen Faramarzi-Palangar.

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Safari, H., Faramarzi-Palangar, M., Hashemi, S.M.H. et al. A New Approach to 3D Saturation Height Modeling by Coupling a Capillary Pressure Model with Pore Throat Size Distribution. Nat Resour Res 31, 1045–1059 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-022-10012-3

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