Comprehensive Characterization Investigation of Multiple Time-Varying Rock-Fluid Properties in Waterflooding Development

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, the characterization parameter “effective displacement flux” is employed to describe the flushing intensity, and a new numerical simulator in which the rock-fluid properties considered functions of the effective displacement flux is developed based on the black oil model. Additionally, a conceptual reservoir model is established to validate the effective characterization of the time-varying mechanisms: the time-varying oil viscosity can characterize the viscous fingering of the water phase and the time-varying absolute permeability can present the aggravation of reservoir heterogeneity, the alteration of wettability is characterized with the time-varying relative permeability, and the ultimate recovery will increase with the combined effect of all three time-varying factors. Eventually, the new simulator is applied to the simulation of an actual waterflooding reservoir to illustrate the assistance in history matching. The simulation results of our simulator can readily match the history data, which proves that the consideration of comprehensive time-varying rock-fluid properties can significantly improve the accuracy during the numerical simulation of waterflooding reservoirs.