Abstract
An investigation has been made of short-term rates of imbibition of water and long-term recovery by spontaneous imbibition for crude oil/brine/rock (COBR) systems. The main goal has been to determine the effects of crude oil aging time and temperature on the rates of imbibition as a means of obtaining wettability control for the selected COBR system. After establishing an initial water saturation, samples were aged in an Alaskan crude oil (Alaskan 5/90) for various time periods at either ambient temperature or 80°C. Twenty-seven water imbibition tests were performed, all at ambient conditions. For the COBR systems studied, increasing the aging time and aging temperature decreased the early time rate of imbibition of water. Long-term imbibition recoveries were generally high and fairly insensitive to aging. Moderately water-wet plugs gave the highest recovery by long-term imbibition. Photographic records of oil production at core surfaces are presented, which are indicative of connectivity and capillary pressure driving forces for imbibition.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 717-728 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| State | Published - 1993 |
| Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Fuel Technology
- Energy Engineering and Power Technology