Abstract
One particular practical problem in oil recovery is to predict the time to breakthrough of a fluid injected in one well and the subsequent decay in the production rate of oil at another well. Because we only have a stochastic view of the distribution of rock properties we need to predict the uncertainty in the breakthrough time and post-breakthrough behaviour in order to calculate the economic risk. In this paper we use percolation theory to predict (i) the distribution of the chemical path (shortest path) between two points (representing well pairs) at a given Euclidean separation and present a scaling hypothesis for this distribution which is confirmed by numerical simulation, (ii) the distribution of breakthrough times which can be calculated algebraically rather than by very time consuming direct numerical simulation of large numbers of realisations.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
More From: Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.