SPE 93831

Effect of Temperature on Relative Permeability for Heavy-Oil Diatomite Reservoirs

J.M. Schembre, SPE, G.-Q. Tang, SPE, and A.R. Kovscek, SPE, Stanford U.

Copyright 2005, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc.

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2005 SPE Western Regional Meeting held in
Irvine, CA, U.S.A., 30 March 1 April 2005.
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ABSTRACT
Thermal recovery is the most utilized enhanced oil recovery
method. The modeling of thermal recovery processes not only
requires relative permeability functions, but also information
about the effects of temperature on these functions. There are
significant challenges encountered when estimating relative
permeability from laboratory data, such as accuracy of
measurements and generalizing assumptions in the
interpretation techniques. A novel method is used here to
estimate relative permeability and capillary pressure from insitu aqueous phase saturation profiles obtained utilizing
computerized tomography (CT) scanning during imbibition
experiments. Relative permeability and capillary pressure
functions are interpreted simultaneously including
nonequilibrium effects. Moreover, the use of B-spline
coefficients allows the estimation of arbitrary shaped
functions. Results obtained show a shift toward increased
water-wettability with increasing temperature for diatomite
reservoir core. The measured changes in relative permeability
are linked to the effect of temperature on surface forces and
ultimately to rock-fluid interactions.
INTRODUCTION
An understanding of the effects of temperature on wettability
and relative permeability functions is essential to optimize and
forecast the results of thermal recovery projects. Most of the
controversy regarding the effect of temperature on relative
permeability is due to the mechanisms involved in rock
wettability change that are dependent on both fluid and rock
characteristics. A secondary, and equally important problem,
is the technique used to process the data (oil recovery, phase
saturation, and pressure) collected during experiments and its
interpretation in the form of relative permeability curves. This
paper is mainly concerned with the latter issue; companion
work on the former is reported elsewhere1,2.

In order to measure relative permeability in low-permeability

porous media, capillary forces cannot be neglected as they are
in unsteady-state methods. Capillary pressure has a significant
effect on saturation distribution and recovery, and capillary
forces dominate multiphase flow in low-permeability rocks
and fractured reservoirs. Thus, most unconventional unsteady
techniques do not apply to low permeability rocks.
Additionally, Akin et al.3 showed that the JBN technique, an
unsteady-state method, leads to inaccurate measurements of
relative permeability for sandstone containing heavy oil.
Steady-state methods have been modified to make corrections
for capillary forces and capillary ends effects4,5. Steady-state
techniques, however, suffer from the laborious efforts needed
to reach multiple steady states; this is especially the case for
low permeability rocks.
Most methods based on history matching observable
parameters, such as fluid production, pressure drop, and
saturation profile history, assume that relative permeability
and capillary pressure curves behave according to a predetermined function6,7 . It has been shown that relative
permeability in diatomite rock does not follow any functional
shape8,9. As such, exisiting methods may not be applicable.
In the method we propose, two-phase relative permeability
curves and capillary pressure functions are computed from
experimental in-situ, saturation profiles obtained during
imbibition experiments. Such estimates, while nonunique, are
highly constrained by the measured in-situ saturation histories.
This paper proceeds by first briefly describing the set up and
experimental method. Next, the basics of the interpretation
method are outlined. Results and discussion follow. Finally,
we report and discuss the results obtained from a mechanistic
point of view. The mechanism proposed has been invoked by
the authors elsewhere2.
EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS
The saturation profiles were obtained from spontaneous
countercurrent water imbibition performed in four viscous oilfilled diatomite cores at temperatures of 120 and 180 C 10.
Table 1 summarizes properties of the cores. Three of the
experiments used crude oil as the nonwetting phase, one
experiment was performed with the viscous white oil, PAO40.
Brine was the wetting phase. The characteristics of the core
and fluids are listed in Table 110,11. Crude-oil viscosity is 640
cp at 43 C, 18.2 cp at 120 C, and 4.5 cp at 180 C. The
viscosity of PAO40 is 4.7 cp at 180 C. Experiments
performed with crude oil at different temperature (120 and 180
C) provide information about the change of relative
permeability with temperature. The other two experiments are

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SPE SPE 93831

used to draw out conclusions about the effect of the core type
(field core versus outcrop core) and type of oil (PAO40 versus
crude oil).
Figure 1 shows a schematic of the experimental setup10 .
Brine flows past one face of the core, whereas the other face
remains closed for all tests during spontaneous countercurrent
imbibition. In order to perform experiments at elevated
temperature and pressure and remain suitable for CT scanning,
the coreholder is built from aluminum. The design of the
coreholder also minimizes the effect of heating on rock
compaction. Scan geometry is conventional. The coreholder is
placed horizontally within the CT scanner gantry and bolted to
a stepper-motor driven positioning system (Compumotor
RP240, Parker-Hannifin). The core is positioned with an
accuracy of 0.1 mm. About 8 to 10 images are collected
sequentially along the length of the core. Saturation profiles
are obtained from two-dimensional images by averaging the
saturation values at a particular location. Image subtraction12
is used to compute saturations from CT numbers.
METHOD
We use simulated annealing to estimate simultaneously
relative permeability and capillary pressure. The objective is
to match saturation profiles measured during imbibition
experiments. Thus, the difference between the position
measured, xm, and the position calculated, xc, by the forward
model for each saturation value, is minimized. The objective
function, E, is
1

N prof N sat
c
m

x (S w t , t i ) x (S w t , t i )
i =1 j =1
E=
N sat N prof

22

(1)

where the product NsatNprof is the number of measured aqueous

phase saturations to be matched. The method has been
validated with synthetic data, using fluid and rock properties
characteristic of experimental cases13. The other advantage of
the method is its capability to include nonequilibrium effects
in the estimation of relative permeability and capillary
pressure. In strongly unsteady flows, such as capillary
imbibition of a porous block, the assumption that relative
permeability and capillary pressure are universal functions of
the local water saturation is inadequate14,15.
A time period, , the redistribution time16 , is required to
reach local equilibrium. In order to evaluate the relative
permeability and capillary pressure functions accounting for
this redistribution time, the effective water saturation, , is
defined. It is not measurable directly, but it is related to the
measured water saturation, Sw, and time as 15

= Sw +

dSw
dt

(2)

where dSw /dt is the change of saturation with time at a

particular position. This term is measured from our in-situ
saturation data. The redistribution time, , is obtained from
matching the dimensionless oil production history versus
dimensionless time15:

R( t ) = Vo 1 e

(3)

where Vo is an unknown that depends on the characteristics of

the core and fluids. Thus, we solve Eq. 3 for Vo and .
Another simplifying assumption is that is constant for all
saturation values. The effective saturation is computed from
experimental data by applying Eq. 2 to the measured Sw and
d S w /dt for a particular location. Steady-state relative
permeability and capillary pressures curves and their dynamic
counterparts are, thus, related by Eq. 2. The dynamic krw is
evaluated at from the steady-state curves as illustrated in
Fig. 2. Thus, the dynamic relative permeability equals or
exceeds the steady- state krw. Figures 3 and 4 show a plot of
the different relative permeability and capillary pressure
values that the simulator uses for each time in the case of a
crude-oil filled outcrop core. To obtain each curve, Sw values
are transformed to and relative permeability is evaluated
from the steady-state curves at . In this case, the
redistribution time, , is 2500 seconds (Table 2). The small
values of dSw/dt due to the large crude-oil viscosity offset the
expected large impact of the redistribution time.
RESULTS
Figures 5 - 8 compare the experimental and simulated water
saturation profiles for all four cases. Results include
nonequilibrium effects in the calculations. A detailed
discussion about neglecting nonequilibrium effects on the
interpretation of these experiments is offered by Schembre13.
Relative estimation errors are listed in each figure caption.
The progression of the experimental front is ambiguous due to
the fact that data is scarce in the flow direction. In these
experiments, the resolution is between 12 and 14 points.
Resolution is a chief difference between the conventional and
unconventional CT-scan geometries8,9,12 . For this series of
high temperature experiments, the positioning of the cores in
the X-ray CT-scanning equipment was conventional. Cross
sectional images were taken along the central axis of the core,
so a sequential number of images were collected to span along
the core from inlet to outlet at any particular time. Table 2 lists
the and Vo obtained for the four countercurrent experiments
performed at high temperature.
The values of the redistribution time, , for countercurrent
imbibition performed on viscous oils, are larger than those
reported for imbibition performed on n-decane and air9.
Greater redistribution times imply that the system takes longer
to achieve rearrangement of the flow network. This is
expected due to larger viscosity of the nonwetting fluid.
Effects of Core Type
Recovery varies depending on the fluid used in outcrop cores
at 180 C. Experiments performed with mineral oil appear
more water-wet as compared to crude oil in the same core type
and conditions (Fig. 9). Here, wettability is gauged by the
endpoint krw and the crossover Sw where krw exceeds krnw.
Also, estimated Leverett J-functions for mineral oil are greater

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SPE 93831

than for the crude oil (Fig. 10). In a study on the same data,
Tang and Kovscek10 found that the outcrop cores have two
wettability states resulting in different recovery trends
depending on the core.
Comparison of the relative permeability curves resulting
from experiments performed on crude-oil filled field and
outcrop cores at 180 C (Fig. 11) provides another example of
the effects of different rocks on relative permeability and
capillary pressure. The compilation of the estimated relative
permeability curves in Fig. 11 reflects that the field core is
more water-wet than the outcrop core. Note the location of the
crossover point between krw and krnw. Figure 12 compares
Leverett J-functions obtained for both field and outcrop cores.
Outcrop core shows greater capillary pressures than field core.
The imbibition test performed on the outcrop core yielded
larger and faster cumulative oil production than the field core.
The reason for this difference in oil production is conveyed by
the capillary pressures curves.
Effect of Temperature
Figure 13 shows relative permeability curves for crude
oil/brine/ field core at experimental temperatures of 120 and
180 C. Relative permeability values are plotted for nonnormalized water saturation, thus the decrease of SorI with
temperature is appreciated, where SorI is the oil saturation
remaining after spontaneous water imbibition. This
observation has been made by other authors for consolidated
media11,17-22 (It has been also observed to a lesser degree for
unconsolidated media19,23.
The decrease in SorI and lower water relative permeability
endpoints with increasing temperature is representative of a
shift to more water-wet conditions. In the case of the capillary
function, there is a decrease of the capillary pressure with
temperature (Fig. 14). Recently, Gladkikh and Bryant2 4
presented results for predicted shifts in the capillary pressure
with changes in wettability. As the wettability increases, the
Leverett J-function is expected to increase. The opposite trend
is observed in Leverett J-functions curves shown in Fig. 15.
Tang and Kovscek10 (2004) found that, after scaling the data,
the curve for 120 C was far from the curves for 180 C.
Moreover, the scaled spontaneous imbibition results showed
the system at 120 C as more water wet. The field cores had
very different lithology, despite both being diatomite, thus, it
is reasonable that we obtain very different Leverett Jfunctions.
DISCUSSION
For the description of multiphase flow in porous media,
wettability is manifest through relative permeability and
capillary pressure relationships. The water wettability, gauged
by the endpoint and crossover of the relative permeability in
Fig. 13, showed an increase at elevated temperature. In these
experiments, fines production was observed at high
temperature. This same observation has been reported by other
authors25-31, but no mechanism for release has been proposed
and verified. Additionally, experiments performed in different
diatomite cores with medium gravity crude oil showed a
systematic increase in oil recovery rate with temperature10,22.
Schembre et al.22 found that Amott indices to water correlate
inversely with initial clay content at initial temperature. In the

same study, they found that strong water wettability, gauged

by the Amott index, developed for all cores at 230 C; these
results were accompanied by fines production. In the next
section we revisit a scenario that links fines migration with
wettability changes at elevated temperatures.
A Scenario for Wettability Change
A hypothesis, proposed by Schembre and Kovscek1,2, suggests
that fines migration and thin-film stability contributes largely
to changes in wettability observed in some rocks as
temperature increases. The scenario is represented by Fig. 16.
At initial reservoir temperature, T1, oil-wet fines are attached
to the grain surface. The oil-wet surface of fines results from
the deposition of asphaltic components in the crude oil onto
solid surfaces and it is irreversible32. The grains underlying the
fines are water-wet because oil never contacted them directly.
As temperature increases (T2) there are two mechanisms that
change the pore-level wettability (a) detachment of fines from
the wall with consequent exposure of the clean grain surface
beneath, and (b) stabilization of the thin water film covering
these grain surfaces. A stronger water film prevents this waterwet grain surface from being exposed to the oil phase and it
increases the water wettability of the pore. Fines detachment
and the stabilization of thin wetting films on the solid surface,
illustrated in Fig. 16, likely accompanies certain fluid
conditions (pH, salinity, composition) and characteristics of
the mineral surface.
In single-phase experiments performed on Berea
sandstone, it has been found that an increase of temperature,
accompanied by specific fluid conditions characteristic of
steam condensate (low salinity and high pH), fines detachment
occurs2. For the case of diatomite, it has been found
experimentally10,30 and theoretically 22 , that as temperature
increases the diatomite cores become more water-wet as a
result of fines detachment and increased thin wetting film
stability. The results obtained for water relative permeability
are a confirmation of the observations.
Additionally, because fines detachment occurs at a specific
temperature and it changes abruptly the wettability from one
temperature to other, this mechanism discards the possibility
of modeling the relative permeability curves as a result of
simple interpolation / extrapolation between two sets of
relative permeability curves at different temperatures.
CONCLUSIONS
The following main conclusions are drawn:
1. Dynamic relative permeability and capillary pressures
curves can be estimated from heavy oil counter current
imbibition experiments in diatomite rocks.
2. Nonequilibrium effects were included in these estimations
with no loss in generality of the interpretation method.
3. The remaining oil saturation, (SorI), and the water relative
permeability endpoint decreased as temperature increased.
These results confirm that temperature increases the water
wettability,.
4. Relative permeability and capillary pressures are not only
sensitive to the temperature but also to the surface
characteristics of the core.

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SPE SPE 93831

5. A better understanding of the role played by surface forces

on multiphase systems has been developed to elucidate the
effects of temperature on wettability.
NOMENCLATURE
E
k
kp
Lc
M*
Nsat
Nprof
Pc
R
Sp
t
ti
tD
T
Vo
xc
xm

objective function
absolute permeability of phase p
relative permeability for phase p
characteristic length, defined by Zhou et al. (19)
characteristic mobility ratio
number of saturation points
number of profiles
capillary pressure
dimensionless oil recovery
saturation of phase p
time
time step
dimensional group, defined in Eq. 4
temperature
dimensionless parameter in Eq. 3
position of saturation, calculated
position of saturation, measured

Greek Symbols

porosity
*
characteristic mobility

redistribution time

effective saturation
Subscripts
o
oil
or
residual oil
orI
remaining oil by imbibition
ro
relative to oil
rw
relative to water
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was prepared with the support of the U.S.
Department of Energy, under Award No.DE-FC2600BC15311. However, any opinion, findings, conclusions, or
recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors
and do not necessarily reflect the view of the DOE.
Additionally, the support of the Stanford University Petroleum
Research Institute (SUPRI-A) Industrial Affiliates is gratefully
acknowledged.
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heavy-oil/water relative permeability in horizontal and vertically

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drilled core plugs, Journal of Petroleum Technology Aug:15001510.

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23783. Presented at the SPE International Symposium on
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Tab1e 1. Core properties and test conditions

Exp. Nonwetting Core Length
K
fluid
type
(cm) (%) (md)
1
Crude
field
6.5
55 0.8
2
Crude
field
6.4
58 1.1
3
Crude
outcrop 6.5
67 2.7
4
PAO40
outcrop 6.5
67 2.7

T
(C)
120
180
180
180

No. of Sw
Measurements
14
11
12
12

Table 2. Nonequilibrium effects in countercurrent imbibition: and Vo values

Fluids
Brine/Crude Oil
Brine/Crude Oil
Brine/Crude Oil
Brine/PAO40

Core
field
field
outcrop
outcrop

Temperature ( oC)
120
180
180
180

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(sec)
2247
308
2500.
192

Vo
0.0645
0.0070
0.0031
0.0278

SPE SPE 93831

Figure 4. Capillary pressure curves as a function of time (in

minutes), experiment 3.

Figure 1. Schematic of experimental setup 10.

Figure 2. Relationship between krw() and krw (Sw)16.

Figure 5. Countercurrent imbibition in outcrop core / brine /

PAO40 oil at 180C. Comparison of experimental water
saturation profiles (solid lines) and simulation profiles
(broken lines). Relative estimation error: 16 %.

Figure 3. Relative permeability curves as a function of time (in

minutes), experiment 3.
Figure 6. Countercurrent imbibition in outcrop core / brine /
crude oil at 180 C. Comparison of experimental water
saturation profiles (solid lines) and simulation profiles (broken
lines) Relative estimation error: 9 %.

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SPE 93831

Figure 7. Countercurrent imbibition in field core/ brine / crude

oil at 120 C. Comparison of experimental water saturation
profiles and simulation profiles. Relative estimation error:
12.3%.

Figure 10. Countercurrent imbibition on outcrop cores at

180C. Comparison of Leverett J-functions estimated using
mineral PAO40 (solid line) and crude oil (broken line) as
nonwetting phase.

Figure 8. Countercurrent imbibition in field core / brine /

crude oil at 180C. Comparison of experimental water
saturation profiles (solid lines) and simulation profiles (broken
lines). Relative estimation error: 26.4 %.

Figure 11. Countercurrent imbibition on brine-crude oil at

180C. Comparison of relative permeability estimated for field
(solid line) and outcrop cores (broken lines).

Figure 9. Countercurrent imbibition on outcrop cores at

180C. Comparison of relative permeability estimated using
mineral PAO40 (solid line) and crude oil (broken line) as
nonwetting phase.

Figure 12. Countercurrent imbibition on brine-crude oil at

180C. Comparison of Leverett J-Functions estimated for field
(solid line) and outcrop cores (broken lines).

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SPE SPE 93831

Figure 13. Relative permeability curves for countercurrent

imbibition in field core, brine-crude oil at 120C (solid lines)
and 180C (broken lines).

Figure 15. Capillary pressures for countercurrent imbibition in

field core, brine-crude oil at 120C (solid lines) and 180C
(broken lines).

Figure 14. Capillary pressures for countercurrent imbibition in

field core, brine-crude oil at 120C (solid lines) and 180C
(broken lines).
Figure 16. Mechanism proposed for wettability shift toward
increased water-wetness. Initial temperature of the system is
T1, final temperature is T2 after increasing the temperature. T2
> T1.

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