The effect of film-flow on the mobilization of waterflood residual oil by gas flooding

Abstract

The importance of film flow in the displacement of waterflood residual oil by gas flooding in glass micromodels under strongly water wet conditions was studied both experimentally and theoretically. Measured oil and water film thicknesses are presented and compared with film thicknesses computed from a solution of the augmented Young-Laplace equation. Both the computed water and oil film thicknesses are shown to be in good agreement with those observed in micromodel displacement experiments. The conductivity of oil and water films was determined from computed film velocity profiles and these are shown to provide good first order estimates of the time scales associated with pore scale displacement events observed in the micromodel experiments. It is concluded that film flow plays an important role in determining the nature of the displacement processes on the pore scale.