Effect of hysteresis on the Archie saturation exponent

In this study, the Archie saturation exponent was determined to reveal a saturation history dependent (hysteresis) behavior. The hysteresis aspect of the study identified a region of a) oil-displacing water (primary drainage), where the saturation exponent was found to be 1.8; b) spontaneous water inhibition followed by forced imbibition. The saturation exponent was found to be 2.72. Another region is the spontaneous secondary drainage, followed by forced secondary drainage with saturation exponent of 2.14. A one dimensional two-phase numerical simulator was also developed and used to perform a sensitivity analysis.