Relative permeability data are a key component in reservoir characterization, understanding reservoir behavior, and predicting recovery factors in EOR projects such as water floods. Relative permeability data are a critical input parameter for reservoir simulators. The data are very expensive to acquire and in many cases are not readily available, such as in: 1) old fields, 2) acquisition candidates, and 3) fast-track reservoir simulation of discovery wells. In these cases, the reservoir engineer is often left with his or her “best estimate” of residual oil, relative permeability, water cut curves, and recovery factors. However, the uncertainty and risk involved in making these estimates can be greatly reduced by having a relative permeability database that can be accessed to acquire the statistics and probability of these key parameters from analogs.
The Integrated Reservoir Solutions Division of Core Laboratories is offering to interested companies participation in the development of a searchable Relative Permeability Database for the purpose of enhancing operator’s prediction of reservoir behavior. The primary objective of this project is to provide reservoir engineers with a large relative permeability database (RPD) that is easy to search, allows analysis of the data, and permits data to be extracted to other applications.
The various data types that will be included in the database consist of all those normally associated with gas-water, water-gas, water-oil, oil-water, and gas-oil relative permeability measurements. These include basic porosity, air permeability, effective gas permeability, effective oil permeability, effective water permeability, initial water saturation, residual oil saturation, oil recovery factor, residual gas saturation, and full relative permeability curves.