Evaluate Wettability and Production Potential of Tight Reservoirs Through Spontaneous Imbibition Using Time-Lapse NMR and Other Measurements
Authors: Ali Mansoor , Ali Safdar , Mathur Ashish , Von Gonten William 
Published: December 2021

Several studies have shown that rock-fluid interactions in tight rocks are influenced by the natural wettability behavior of the various pore systems. Studying the water/oil displacement on a smaller scale using core plug imbibition and monitoring with NMR is very insightful in evaluating wettability and distinguishing pore modes and rock types based on their fluid affinity. Extending learnings from plug-scale imbibition process to reservoir production behavior requires understanding of the underlying compositional and/or textural parameters controlling the wettability.

This paper presents a systematic study of spontaneous imbibition of oil and water in core plugs procured from several tight and organic-rich reservoirs with varying mineral composition and organic content. The experiment comprised three identical core plugs from the same depth undergoing multiple fluid imbibition cycles with one plug starting in produced brine, the second one in produced crude and the last one in decane. Sample weights were continuously monitored and when stable, a sample which was in brine was moved to crude and the one in crude was moved to brine. This process was repeated for four cycles so that samples that started in brine finally ended up in crude and those that started in crude ended up in brine. The saturation changes and rock-fluid interaction in different fluid types were monitored using a 12 MHz NMR spectrometer. The 12 MHz NMR allowed very accurate partitioning of the oil-filled and water-filled porosity in these tight rocks, which was essential for the wettability analysis.

The rate and extent of saturation changes varied significantly from sample to sample. The comparison between the companion plugs imbibing either higher amounts of oil or water revealed the fluid affinity of each sample. We computed the ratio of the net incremental fluid fraction to the total porosity to represent the dominant pore wetting system for rock samples at a given depth. We measured organic content and mineralogy of the samples and analyzed the matrix effect on wettability. We analyzed the post-imbibition NMR relaxation times (T1,T2) of individual fluid types and integrated with matrix properties to evaluate oil and water mobilities. We found predicted fluid mobilities to be consistent with the observed production from wells drilled in the different reservoirs and rock types.

We observed most samples attain 100% fluid saturation within two to four cycles and almost all the samples at a given depth took up very similar water volumes irrespective of whether the companion plugs started in brine or crude. The process highlighted that water-wet pores governed the final water saturation, which was strongly correlated with total clay. The amount of organic content and carbonate minerals influenced the oil uptake and its relative mobility. For samples that started in decane, decane was imbibed faster and caused samples to attain higher oil saturation than samples that started in crude.