Direct laboratory measurement on solid and fluid in heavy oil sands rock and its rock physics interpretation

Abstract

Summary The elastic properties of heavy oil sands are influenced by multiphase of heavy oil and sands grain, as well as temperature, pressure, microstructure and sedimentary history. In order to quantitatively investigate the role of a single phase in integrated rock of heavy oil sands at a specific condition, special laboratory measurements on oil and sands of heavy oil sands rock are designed and performed for three artificial samples. By the improved laboratory approaches, we can gain an insight into the physical interaction between the solid and fluid components in heavy oil sands. The exact laboratory results reveal that the elastic properties of heavy oil is distinctively temperature dependent, which reflects the total variation of the multiphase on temperature, and in turn demonstrates that heavy oils dominate the elastic properties of the heavy oil sands. Furthermore, the extended Gassmann model indicates that heavy oil properties may be the major reason for the misfit of underestimating the both P- and S-wave velocities as temperature decreases.