Elastic waves in porous media saturated with non-wetting fluid
Jimmy X. Li A D , Reza Rezaee A , Tobias M. Müller B C and Mohammad Sarmadivaleh AA Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University, 26 Dick Perry Avenue, Kensington, WA 6151, Australia.
B Department of Seismology, Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada, 22860 Ensenada, BC, Mexico.
C School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China.
D Corresponding author. Email: jimmy.li@postgrad.curtin.edu.au
The APPEA Journal 60(1) 315-325 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ19196
Submitted: 10 December 2019 Accepted: 17 January 2020 Published: 15 May 2020
Abstract
Elastic waves have widely been used as a non-destructive probing method in oilfield exploration and development, and the most well-known applications are in seismic exploration and borehole sonic logging. For waves in porous media, it is popular to use the Biot theory, which incorporates the wave-induced global flow, accounting for the frictional attenuation. The Biot theory assumes that the fluid is wetting to the solid matrix. However, the fluid is not always wetting the rock in real reservoirs. It was previously revealed that a non-wetting fluid parcel tends to slip on the solid wall pore boundary where the intermolecular potential between the fluid and solid wall is weaker than in wetting fluid conditions. This particular slippage feature means that the coupling relationship between the fluid and solid frame and frictional dissipation is likely to be very different between non-wetting and wetting fluid situations. We characterise this wave-induced slippage using an apparent viscosity for the non-wetting fluid within the thin viscous boundary layer. This apparent viscosity is smaller than the viscosity of the bulk fluid. We demonstrate that the slip correction affects the dynamic permeability and dynamic tortuosity and results in slippage/wettability dependent phase velocities and attenuation of the fully fluid-saturated rock.
Keywords: Biot theory, dynamic permeability, poroelasticity, rock physics, wave-induced-flow wettability.
Jimmy X. Li has 10 years’ experience in the upstream oil and gas industry. His experience extends to logging-while-drilling, formation evaluation and directional drilling related field operation and technical consultation. From 2007 to 2017 he worked in Halliburton Energy Service Inc. and took part in various technical and management positions, such as the measurement/logging-while-drilling Operation Lead and Technical Advisor. He currently is a PhD candidate in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Curtin University. His research interests include rock physics, sonic logging and acoustics in porous media. He is a member of SPE, SPWLA (FESAus) and PESA. |
Professor Reza Rezaee of Curtin University’s Department of Petroleum Engineering has a PhD in Reservoir Characterisation. He has over 27 years’ experience in academia, being responsible for both teaching and research. His research has been mostly on integrated solutions for reservoir characterisation, formation evaluation and petrophysics. During his career, he has been engaged in several research projects supported by major oil and gas companies, and these commissions, together with his supervisory work at various universities, have involved a wide range of achievements. He has supervised over 70 MSc and PhD students during his university career to date. He has published more than 170 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers and is the author of four books on petroleum geology, logging and log interpretation and gas shale reservoirs. As a founder of the ‘Unconventional Gas Research Group’ of Australia, he has established a unique and highly sophisticated research laboratory at the Department of Petroleum Engineering, Curtin University. This laboratory was established to conduct research on petrophysical evaluation of tight gas sands and shale gas formations. |
Dr. Tobias Müller is a geophysicist currently affiliated with the Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada in Mexico and Hohai University in Nanjing (China). From 2008 to 2018 he was a Principal Senior Research Scientist with CSIRO in Perth, Australia. Previously, he was at Karlsruhe University (2005–2008) and Curtin University (2002–2005). He is an Emmy-Noether Fellow of the German Research Foundation and obtained his PhD in 2001 from the Freie Universität Berlin and a Diploma from Karlsruhe University, both in geophysics. His research interests include the theory of waves in random media, poromechanics, seismic modelling and rock physics. He is a member of EAGE and SEG. |
Dr. Mohammad Sarmadivaleh is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Petroleum Engineering, Curtin University and leads the Petroleum Geo-mechanics Group. Mohammad received his PhD from Curtin University in numerical and experimental studies on hydraulic fracturing in 2012. Mohammad’s research interests include hydraulic fracturing, sanding, geo-mechanical reservoir modelling and CO2 sequestration studies. He currently supervises 10 higher degree research students and participates in academic and industrial research projects. |
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