Surface Potential and Permeability of Rock Cores Under Asphaltenic Oil Flow Conditions

Abstract

Abstract The surface properties, wetting behaviour and permeability of rock samples are central to understanding recovery behaviour in oil reservoirs. This paper will present a method new to petroleum engineering to show how area/length ratios for porous systems can be obtained by combining streaming potential and streaming current measurements on rock cores. This has allows streaming current measurements (independent of surface conductivity errors) to be made on rock samples using hydrocarbon solvents with increasing concentrations of asphaltene. Negative surface potentials for the rock became steadily more positive as asphaltene coated the pore surfaces, with permeability reduction agreeing well with petrographic analysis.