The relationship between formation temperature and permeability in a heavy oil reservoir

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn the process of heavy oil exploitation, formation temperature changes severely, which will cause the deformation of formation skeleton and the redistribution of formation permeability, and then affect the crude oil seepage. On the contrary, the change of formation permeability will change the distribution of temperature field. In order to study the relationship between formation temperature and permeability in a heavy oil reservoir, on the basis of three field coupling mechanisms, the authors adopted a physical simulation experiment to study the effect of formation temperature on the formation permeability, and results show: when the temperature is kept at the same level, the permeability of sample decreases with the increase of effective stress, and the decline rate is bigger at the initial stage, then it will level off gradually. When the effective stress is kept at the same level, the permeability of sample decreases with the rise of temperature. The authors study the effect of formation permeability on the distribution of temperature field through numerical simulation method, and results show that the higher the permeability is, the faster the temperature field will spread; also formation temperature will be higher under the same condition. All achievements have important guiding significance for the effective development of heavy oil reservoir.