Determination of Relative Permeability from Well Production Data with Consideration of Formation Heterogeneity and Fluid viscosity by Mean of Reservoir Simulator

Abstract

Accurate estimation of relative permeability is essential for reliable reservoir history matching and decision-making, and effective reservoir management. This information is also critical for the design, implementation, and monitoring of enhanced oil recovery processes.
This study presents an effective method for acquiring the relative permeability data directly from the well production data in oil reservoirs where water acts as the fluid phase displacing oil. The methodology presented in this study provides convenient interpretation formulae which are applicable to unsteady-state, two-phase, immiscible, and incompressible fluids. The total mobility and the mobility ratio of the immiscible fluids are related to the characteristic parameters of the displacement process and the cumulative injected fluid pore volume following [1] et al. These parameters are then incorporated into a general correlation function which allows for analytically estimation of the relative permeability functions. The present approach produces unique estimation of the relative permeability functions and is more practical than the previous approaches which rely on computationally complicated history matching procedures, often suffer from the non uniqueness issue of the obtained relative permeability data.