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Multimodal Carbonates: Distribution of Oil Saturation in the Microporous Rock Regions
Version 1
: Received: 3 January 2022 / Approved: 6 January 2022 / Online: 6 January 2022 (10:03:11 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Patzek, T.W.; Saad, A.M.; Hassan, A. Multimodal Carbonates: Distribution of Oil Saturation in the Microporous Regions of Arab Formations. Energies 2022, 15, 1243. Patzek, T.W.; Saad, A.M.; Hassan, A. Multimodal Carbonates: Distribution of Oil Saturation in the Microporous Regions of Arab Formations. Energies 2022, 15, 1243.
Abstract
Improved oil recovery from tight carbonate formations may provide the world with a major source of lower-rate power over several decades. Here we provide an overview of the Arab D formation in the largest oil field on earth, the Ghawar. We investigate the occurrence of microporosity of different origins and sizes using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and pore casting techniques. Then, we present a robust calculation of the probability of invasion and oil saturation distribution in the nested micropores using mercury injection capillary pressure data available in the literature. We show that large portions of the micropores in Arab D formation would have been bypassed during primary drainage unless the invading crude oil ganglia were sufficiently long. Considering the asphaltenic nature of oil in the Ghawar, we expect the invaded portions of the pores to turn mixed-wet, thus becoming inaccessible to waterflooding until further measures are taken to modify the system’s chemistry.
Keywords
microporous carbonates; multimodal porosity; primary drainage; capillary invasion; mixed wettability
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Geochemistry and Petrology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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