Reservoir Wettability
1. Since, drainage (invasion of the non-wetting fluid) being a relatively simpler physical process, which can be captured with ease @ laboratory-scale using experiments, how about capturing the invasion of the wetting fluid, i.e., imbibition @ laboratory-scale, which depends on additional effects due to the pore geometry and also due to the film flow along the roughness of the solid?
In case, if imbibition remains to be relatively complex than drainage, then, how do we end up with 100% effective displacement during imbibition for a particular geometry, while, during drainage, the displaced fluid gets trapped in the small capillary under different circumstances using parallel arrangements of uniform capillaries of different sizes?
2. Similar to the laboratory-scale experiments, can we end up with a relatively improved efficiency for a strongly oil-wet reservoir, where the brine flows by piston-like displacement through the oil-filled pores without the occurrence of snap-off mechanism (which eventually, results in a complete displacement of oil from the invaded pores) @ field-scale as well?
Along the similar lines, whether, for a strongly water-wet reservoir, whether, will we end up with the brine layers surrounding the oil-filled pores thickening progressively, causing the snap-off @ pore throats and eventually leaving evenly distributed narrow filaments of oil in the middle of the pore bodies @ field-scale as well?
3. At the field-scale, is it true that “as the displacing fluid becomes more wetting, the invasion front becomes more compact and in turn, would more effectively sweep the displaced fluid @ all capillary numbers?
4. Whether increasing the substrate’s affinity to the brine – would result in a more effective displacement of the oil up to a critical wetting transition, beyond which the trend would become revered?
5. Whether the residual oil saturation associated with an oil-wet reservoir would remain to be smaller than that associated with a water-wet reservoir; and that the water-wet reservoir would exhibit a higher number of large oil ganglia, leading to a higher residual oil saturation @ field-scale as well?
6. Feasible to capture the wettability influence in a petroleum reservoir @ laboratory-scale, when the reservoir exhibits both physical and chemical heterogeneities along with the presence of liquid films (mixed-wet system)?
How exactly to capture the stability of liquid films in such cases, which plays a crucial role in fluid-solid interactions occurring @ pore-scale?
Feasible to capture the brine flow, which is governed by the combination of layer flow as well a piston-like displacement, in a mixed-wet reservoir?
7. Is there a standard way in order to explore the role of wettability, represented by a given static contact angle, on immiscible displacement occurring in a heterogeneous petroleum reservoir?
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